I've been learning life lessons these past 6 months about intentions and empathy and looking at someone else's motivations. Both from my perspective and from other people's perspective. I have learned that it's so important to look at the position another human is in before placing judgement. It's so hard to refrain from judging another human when you haven't walked a day in their shoes. We tend to make big judgments when we are hurt by someone else and small judgements based on the smaller things (appearance, first impressions, a spoken word, and action) and these smaller judgements scew our view over the bigger things (Hurts, Anger, Regret, Actions, and Words).
The thing about judging others is that we are told by God in his Word not to Judge others because He is the ultimate Judge and will be judging all mankind at the end of days. As a Christian I need to have a little more faith that He will do what He says He will. My job as a human and christian is to Love others as Jesus has told us to do. Love meaning an action word. Meaning that I need to do something to show love to others. When I'm Judging others I'm not being empathetic or loving or kind. What I am doing is putting myself above others and making myself look better than them. When really I'm sooo not.
If I can be empathetic, and compassionate and loving, then I know that my judgements fall by the wayside. If I'm able to look from the other person's point of view then my judgments either never appear or turn into empathy. I wasn't naturally gifted with Empathy, it's not my strong suit. But I have learned that it's a necessary part of humanity. And I've learned that when I tend to get in trouble the most is when I'm not being empathetic and loving.
Now I do tend to get in trouble as well by sticking my nose where it doesn't belong, but that's another post completely. That's another confession for another day! :) LOL!
Really though, I've been learning that to truley love someone, you need to look at their heart. You need to look at their intentions and motivations. You need to see the world from their eyes to understand why they may be doing/saying the things that they do. Maybe instead of getting the other person to see your point of view, we need to see it from theirs first. I don't know if this is a wise JuliFuism or not, but I do know that I've been hurt becuase someone wasn't empathetic with me. And I do know that others have been hurt because of the lack of empathy. As well as I have hurt because of my inability to empathize first before acting.
I don't know how to change someone else. I don't know how to relate to others when I mess up. I don't know to get them to see the world through my eyes. But maybe I'm not supposed to change them, but change me instead. Maybe I can learn to relate to others by empathizing with them more. By understaning and taking the time to listen. By taking the time to get one on one with them to get to know what it's like to walk a day in their shoes. I know that I need to take the time to learn from the last 6 months of my life. I know that I've taken the first step in learning from my mistakes by acknowledging them. Now it's time to put them in action. It's time to stp looking at other people's splinters and taking a look at my log. It's time for me to follow Jesus's command to Love others. And it's time that stop trying to control how other people look at me. I need to continue to learn, grow and change according to the word, and make my heart closer to the dream Jesus has for me.
