In our New Semi Truck mirror in great big letter’s you will find this acronym.
G.O.A.L.
Spelled out it reads. Before backing- Get Out And Look.
When I was in my 20’s a mentor told me this story that is a reminder to do just that.
A mom and her children get on a train. The mom becomes distracted. Today that would be focusing on her phone. Her children are running through the train, jumping and screaming. When a man, takes it upon himself to call the mother out on her bad mothering skills.
“Why don’t you tell your children to sit down!” “They are the worst children I have laid eyes on in my 6 decades of living!’ He exclaims!
The mother startled, looks up with a water filled eyes. “I am so sorry Sir; we just left the hospital where we left the body of my husband, their father. We lost him and everything in our house fire.” “I don’t know why we are on this train or where we are going.” “I will get them settled down.”
This story has impacted my life to look in my own review mirror and places I may have acted out of character. Had you met me in that moment that would be your first impression.
Teen mom, yes; Divorced, yes; Acted in anger in grief, Yes!
Think about what conflict and hurt would be prevented if we all practiced “Before backing GET OUT AND LOOK” in our own rearview mirror.
In Mark 12:31b we find this commandment written. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Where is our “EMPATHY?”
“Empathy” what is it anyway? Oxford dictionary defines empathy as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
To me Having Empathy for someone can mean we can look at everything we believe as wrong and see their side without ever living through it.
It doesn’t mean you change your view, morals or beliefs. It means while looking at the view of the circumstances of another person we can take ourselves out of the equation and sit in love with them.
“Love the person that sit’s next to you, like you want to be loved!”
Store’s in my generation had a motto, “the customer is always right!” this motto is long gone. Most places today you have to prove your side and even then you can find yourself walking away with a loss.
I believe the same thing has happened with relationships. We use to love our friends and families through there faults. Now days though we are required to prove our side.
It is not just in families, but all demographics’ have internal friction within the walls. Which is so absurd. I know I don’t have to spell this out. You have something you are thinking about right now.
Who knows more about what you may be going through than someone that is in your demographic.
Can you imagine if we chose Empathy over conflict today. Is it possible it would bring freedom and peace tomorrow?
I am not saying if I am doing something that is against the law, or something that can harm myself or someone else we shouldn’t speak up. I am saying there is a line we are crossing.
Can we see where giving a opinion with empathy is different than a opinion from a unsolicited place? Can we see that we are not, always right?
Can I take my own belief out of the equation and give grace, if not then maybe it is something, I should not take a stand on at all?
“To Love your neighbor as yourself” should be common sense among anyone that wants to be treated with kindness. Among Christians we can find the truth in scripture.
” Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31 NIV
What we have to understand is that we ourselves will need the Empathy of other’s.
Maybe we don’t agree in our view’s but is it not enough to know that God created us to be different so that we were not alike?
Read that again.
Is it not enough to know that God created us to be different so that we were not alike?
Our G.O.A.L should be that when we “Get out and Look” that we remember “God Officiates All Lives, not us!
