On Polarizing, Harmonizing and Leaving Things Better than we Found Them

Ever smell a really bad smell and wonder where it came from and who was responsible? Isn't it always better to bask in the fragrant aroma of a beautiful smell - be it garlic cooking, a rose or fresh bread baking?

I sometimes wonder why some people have so much time on their hands that they can find whatever is wrong with whatever they don't like. It's like they have this embedded sensor that is able to pick up the error in whatever they don't gravitate towards. My answer to them and me when I am in that mode? Fall in love with Jesus so deeply that everything else, like the things you are fixated on, gets appropriately unfocused and hazy in the background and Jesus takes His rightful center stage.

If you are mad at me right now I might just be talking about you. Actually I have no one in particular in mind right now, just the heaviness of heart that comes when you run across multiple situations where people seem more intent on polarizing than bringing people together, more interested in contention that reconciliation. It can happen to anyone and sometimes it is just a warped perspective that self-corrects as God gives fresh insight.

It seems to me that a balanced view of life, a life based on a Biblical worldview and a gospel-centered way of living that has Jesus Christ as it's goal and aim would, should, could somehow bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and the like. When you get sour grapes you have to wonder what ingredients were mixed in to produce such a caustic mix.

When I take the low road of complaining and faultfinding it often just infects others with the same and leaves the stench of negativity. When I take the high road of praise and fair and balanced assessment it brings people together and leaves the place looking and smelling better than I found it.

There is a place for appropriate discernment, for weighing ideas and worldviews and other points of view. There is a place for growth and progress and change. God brings all these about in the lives of those who have been saved by grace through faith in Christ.

I am most encouraged by people who seem to find the best in whatever they encounter. They don't feel the need to correct everything, they can rest content with the knowledge that God is the Judge and He will someday right all wrongs. They are grace-filled and able to co-exist with those they do not always agree with. They can rest in the knowledge that God knows everything and He is sovereign over all. That kind of person rarely polarizes, primarily harmonizes and seems to leave places better than they found them.

They seem to be living out the truth of James 5:7-9.

That's the kind of person I want to be.