More Like Us

When I was in college I had a job for a while in the security department at the Sears store in the Oakland Mall.  We would watch the surveillance cameras for shoplifters and other suspicious characters.

Sometimes we would need to use the cameras to watch employees.  Someone's till has been coming up short, so keep an eye on them.  Now, this was different.  If yous spend several hours watching one person you will inevitably see them act suspiciously.  They will do something that we don't understand.  "Why would they do that?" "Something is odd about what they are doing." These days when I am in a store, I often wonder what the people behind the cameras are thinking about what I do?

Given enough time, everyone acts oddly.  This means that we don't understand ther actions based on our own perspective.  Making a separate trip to the store room seems suspicious to one person.  Bringing everything out at once seems suspicious to another.  We all have our own motivations and perspectives.

Sometimes the ways that other people make decisions is confusing to me.  I see a falling down old house with a satellite dish in the yard.  I wonder why they don't fix up the house and skip the TV.  They think, how depressing would this place be without decent television?  It's all about perspective.

 

It's no wonder that we have a hard time with moral decisions and behavioral issues.  As Christians we see certain values as obvious.  We even think of them as traditional or family friendly.  However, so many people come to these decisions from differing perspectives.  It's no wonder that we come to different conclusions.  Especially when the perspective is one from a nonbeliever.

We get very angry when nonbelievers don't behave like we think believers should.  Considering a lot of believers don't behave the way that we think believers should, it is no surprise that nonbelievers come to different conclusions.  

I think we worry too much about behaviors and not enough about people.  So often we wish life was like it was back in the good old days, but what we are thinking about is not the days gone by, but rather the white washed versions that we saw on Happy Days and Leave it to Beaver.  Those days didn't exist then and don't exist now.  Some things were better back then, but some things were worse.

We need to worry about people more than their behaviors.  If they accept redemption through Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit will work on their behaviors.  In the mean time, I should worry about my own.

We have a name for loving people in spite of their behavior.  For forgiving people who don't know that they offend us.  For understanding and practicing the idea that Jesus died for them as much as he died for me.  That word is Grace, and we are all called to practice it.