Do we really have the “right” to our opinion? Most often, that “right” seems to be directed at someone else and that “right” never seems to apply to a positive assessment from the throne of our “rightness.”
“Well, what if I really don’t LIKE it?
Should I just LIE and say I do?”
But I have to ask, deep down at the root of that opinion, what will I find?
Do I really have the “right” to dislike the way someone else looks, talks, acts, dresses, sings, expresses themselves? Is that an expression of love?
I have heard it said (and I may have even repeated it a few times…oops)……
“God said I have to love everyone, but He sure didn’t say I had to like them.”
What a haughty proclamation of grading the children of God!! Who gave me the “right” to say that about the ones that God calls “fearfully and wonderfully made”?
Really, if we are to do all that we can do to love others the way God loves them, do you really think He says, “Well…., I will give them a little oxygen and food because I love them, but that is all because I don’t LIKE them. They get on my nerves. They annoy me. Did you see those ugly shoes?”
I have to ask, “Is there anyone out there who is 100% loveable all the time? Or 100% likable all the time? am I?” Could the things in the other person that is rubbing me the wrong way possibly be that the sandpaper is highlighting the burrs on me?
Now I am a firm believer in kindness over niceness. If a fellow traveler is brilliantly sporting “a little something” outside their nose, by all means, be a friend and show them love. But, what if that “little something” is “something” they can’t change or have no control over? Is it really kindness to put a big black X on them?
While our tastes may vary, to say “my taste” is better than “your taste” is a big stinky aroma of pride. And really, just because you have a “right” to your opinion, who is to say your opinion is “right” anyway? Just because your mouth is the loudest it doesn’t mean that it is “right.” I have to conclude that the root of the “right” to my opinion is a haughty spirit that is blatantly obvious to everyone but me that is shooting poisonous arrows at the target.
Having individual preferences is what makes us unique. While you have the “right” to be an individual, I don’t think we have the “right” to ever feel ours is better than someone else’s. The only place for me that this becomes an absolute is in the areas of eternity and in those places it is not my opinions but God’s.
So, what does it mean to love others the way that God loves even when they are so different from us?
I do believe that loving others like God loves,
will cause us to look past those little quirks and idiosyncrasies that make a person unique to see the person that God sees.
It will give us grace to see past the masks and brokenness to
peek at the lovely creature created to be a reflection of Jesus on this earth.
When we look through God’s eyes and filter with His heart,
we will notice that our opinions of others will change to acceptance and celebration.
It is like looking for hidden treasures.
For some of us, those treasures are buried a little deeper than others,
but I truly believe that we will find the process worth the effort.
#4 in my quest for revelation of The Great Commandment. To read more on pursuing The Great Commandment, go to the next blog in this series, “Barbie Butterfly.”
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