My TED Talk: People!

29 Mar My TED Talk: People!

The weather is normalizing (I think, lol!), the sun is out, pollen is in the air and we’re at the end of Women’s History Month! Does that mean we’re going to stop loving-on, celebrating and promoting women? Nope! And we’re going to continue our Women of Judah campaign until the end of the year.

But speaking of “loving on people”……I’d like to tell you about a conversation that I had with a friend at the beginning of the week.  It went something like this…

Her: “Do you want to know what’s so hard about life/church/work?”
Me: “Umm, getting dressed?”, “You can’t pick where you sit/land?”
Her: “People!”
Me: “Gurrrrrlllll!” 

“People!” is an entire TED Talk within it itself.

Well, after I had that conversation, I had a particularly hard week “loving people”.  And I KNOW that in the First Epistle of Peter, it says:
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 
(1 Peter 4:8)

But – if you’re even a little bit like me, you might be thinking that Peter didn’t have to:

work with…
work for…
be related to…
be married to…
be friends with…
talk to…
look at…
or
be in the presence of the people, that I do!

People can be hard, especially the ones that you love. Let’s keep in mind that in every relationship, we can show our love by being forgiving individuals. In 1 Corinthians, one of the characteristics of love is that “it keeps no record of wrongs”. This means that insults, unkind remarks (passive and aggressive), idiosyncrasies and annoying behavior can be pardoned for the sake of love.  And if you’re thinking, “Uh, no it can’t!”. Let me be clear, I’m not saying that we should disregard our own emotions or ignore our personal boundaries. Sin isn’t “covered” by denying that it hurt. Sin is covered by acknowledging that it happened and then extending the forgiveness God has given us to them.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that people (often) can’t give you, what they don’t have themselves. So we have to practice love! Even when people are hard, let’s love, celebrate, promote and forgive each other, continuously.

Proverbs 19:11 says, “A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.” If we are patient, not envious or self-seeking, we are much less likely to even take offense.