A Forgotten Tool

Love you all, praying for you. 
 
I just love God’s Word.  It is the best book on relationships ever written.  Relationship with God – the One who created you and loves you.  And relationship with others made His image.  If you don’t know the God who loves you – who loves perfectly – you can’t really know how to love others.  The principles from God’s Word – teach you to love well.  Selflessly.  Completely.  "Greater love has no man than this, that a man would lay down his life for his friends."  But what about enemies?  God demonstrated his love for us in this, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  The best example of love is God – through Jesus.  If you want to love well, get to know God, and His Word.  And through how He loves you, you can learn to love others.  God’s Word is full of examples and instruction on how to love well.  One forgotten tool when it comes to loving people – Believe The Best.  Do you believe the best of someone – when something happens and you could chose to either believe the best or believe something different?  They said something that you took offense to, or someone else said they did something or said something – that could be taken the wrong way.  Have you notice some people always take things the wrong way.  “He thinks he’s always right,” or “She thinks she’s better than everyone.”  “I can’t believe they said that…”  How do you know what they think?  That’s just a habit of thinking the worst of someone, not believing the best.  One comment turns into another, and soon they’ve formed a complete character assignation in their mind – when that person may not even have said that – or meant anything negative by it?  Especially in marriage – an important tool for a great relationship is to believe the best.  God tells us to overlook faults, not accent or dwell on them.  If nothing else – you’ve made mistakes yourself.  You’ve said something quickly or carelessly without choosing the best words to use.  Someone said "We judge others by what they say, and ourselves by what we meant to say."  When you believe the best – your first thought is 'they didn’t mean it that way.'  You choose to overlook their faults, mistakes, or even poor choices.  One way to believe the best is don’t use the word 'you.'  "You hurt my feelings."  No, your feelings play tricks on you – you allowed yourself to get hurt.  Or the best one.  You make me so angry.  No, you choose to let anger get the best of you, that’s a personal choice, no one forces you.  When you believe the best in someone, your first reaction – your go to - is to excuse the wrong.  Not make excuses for poor behavior, but to believe it didn’t come out how they meant to say it.  Not that you let yourself be mistreated, just recognize everything isn’t mistreatment.  Sometimes people just react out of hurt or pain themselves, or out of simple misunderstanding.  Rather than say – “you said this,” or “you hurt my feelings,” or “you made me mad.”  Try using “my” instead.  It takes the accusation out – which allows communication in an environment where they don’t feel the need to defend themselves. “Can I ask you about something?  I think my feelings may have gotten hurt by the comment “xyz” whatever they said.  Could you share with me what you meant or how you felt in saying that.   Don’t play the victim, just communicate directly.  They might not have even said that, or realized how it could sound - when they really meant to say it differently, or something different altogether.  If they become defensive – don’t take offense again, sometimes the best thing to say is nothing.  They might recognize how it sounds, and re-phrase, or they might not.  But choose to believe the best anyway.  They might just be having a bad day.  You’ve been there.  If nothing else, just pause and let their comments sink in.  They’ll feel heard, and you would probably benefit to step back and consider how your words or actions can effect others.  A valuable tool - Believe the Best.  It’s not easy, or everyone would have great relationships in their life.   As much as it depends on you – live at peace with all men.  Part of that – is just choosing to believe the best.  Communicate how you feel, and be more concerned with how they feel, what they think and feel.  It’s part of loving well.  Praying that you will review the Relationship Topic – Forgiveness and Restoration.  When we believe the best – we are quick to take responsibility when we ourselves make mistakes, and to humbly seek forgiveness so restoration can quickly occur, rather than develop into bigger problems.  So we can build solid and caring relationships that stand the test of time.  Praying that you will learn to love well.  Learn to believe the best - it’s always a choice. 
 
Love you all,
dad