Day 298 - The Best in Me (You Don't Know My Story)

I was riding in the car the other day when "The Best in Me" by Marvin Sapp came on the radio.  While I don't typically listen to this song on a regular basis, for some reason I decided to sit with it as it played.  I was thinking about it, and it clicked to me.  Of course God knows everything about me and sees both the best and the worst in me.  It is understood that if you see God as all-knowing and all-wise, that just follows as logical.  Even though this is an awesome thought - God knows all about me and loves me anyway - I felt led to think about this concept in a different way. 

Now, I have to say that I tend to be the type to see the best in people.  This is not always the case, but most of the time, I try to look for (and I find) the positive in people, even when all others see is the negative.  Now, I'm not blind to the negative, but for some reason, I have a knack for focusing on the positive.  I'm sure there are many reasons for this, but I'm not going to speculate at this current moment.  I will say that it's caused some interesting moments in my relationships, because I tend to see things in people that they don't yet see in themselves or live, and it is easy for me to relate to them based on what I see rather than what currently exists.    

Either way, as I listened to the song, I thought, what would it be like if we all saw the best in each other?  What if we all say each other as God sees us?  What if we could see and appreciate the positive but we could also see the negative and the reasoning behind it, allowing us to extend grace?   How many times have we met someone and the first thing we encountered was their loud mouth, their interesting attitude, or some other less than endearing quality?  It can be easy to write someone off based on that first impression, but if we would take a closer look, we would see that there is a reason behind the loud front and there is some pain behind that attitude.  This is not to say that we are supposed to try to befriend and fix everyone, because that's not possible.  What I am saying is that I think it's important to understand that everyone you meet is a culmination of their experiences. 
There's a gospel song that says, "You don't know my story, all the things that I've been through.  You can't feel my pain, what I had to go through to get here.  You'll never understand my praise, don't try to figure it out, because my worship, my worship is for real."  As the song says, you have no idea what has gotten a person where they are.  And just like it's impossible to extend someone's worship without knowing their story, it's also impossible to understand someone's shyness, emotional barriers, addictions, quirks, or other outside manifestations of the internal things that life has created within them.  

Now, with strangers or acquaintances, this may be a bit challenging, since we may not get to spend enough time with them to see all the positives, this should definitely be applied to those who we are closest to.  (Of course, to make the transition from stranger/acquaintance to friend or boo, we have to extend some measure of this patience and grace.)  It's been said that the first few months of any relationship tend to be great - the honeymoon period - and then people's true colors begin to come out.  Well, ideally, we should be fairly open and upfront from the beginning, but that's another conversation.  But either way, when more of those true colors begin appearing, what will be your reaction.  Bob Marley once said, "the truth is, everybody is going to hurt you.  You just gotta find the ones worth suffering for."  While that is a slightly upsetting prospect, it is true.  Because none of us are perfect, we will all hurt someone and be hurt by someone at some point.  The question is who in your life makes the small pains worth their overall presence in your life.

So what am I saying?  Take time to get to know a person's story before you write them off.  And when you are in relationship (be it friendship or otherwise) with someone, allow their story to motivate you to provide love and patience, especially if they hurt/upset you.  Will everyone receive the help or allow you to love them past their pain?  No.  But it should always be your aim to be the best friend/lover/whatever you can be.  Because there have been those in my life that have provided grace and loved me when I acted like a complete ass, not to mention the great unconditional love of God, I have a true desire to see the best in others, getting to know their story and providing the love that I know myself that I need.  We all need a little understanding, so let's extend the same to others.