Day 2080 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

James 1:19 NIV

Everything we do is open to interpretation. Unfortunately, sometimes things like anger and frustration cloud our ability to think clearly and we take things wrong. It's amazing how fast things get blown out of proportion all over a misunderstanding. You'd think that we would learn to slow down, calm down, make sure we have everything understood clearly, and then respond. Alas, I reckon we're just sometimes too impatient to take the slow and careful route.

What we need to understand is that we're all human. Sure, we say and do things that we don't mean without thinking about them. We run ourselves headlong into messes and problems that simply wouldn't exist if we slowed down a bit. But people also take things out of context. They allow their rage or stress or whatever else to cloud their judgement and blind them to other perspectives. The point is that we're all human and we all make mistakes.

So maybe we ought to give each other a little room. Maybe we should give one another a little time. Maybe we owe it to those around us to not rush to judgement or start fighting back when the other person may not be trying to start a fight to begin with. I think what we'll find is that so many of the problems we face in life are our own fault. We bring so much on ourselves because of our lack of patience and refusal to listen.

While it's often so much easier to start blaming someone else for the things they say or do, maybe some of that blame is on us for how we see things. Maybe it's actually more on us because we lean more on assumptions than on perspective. Maybe, just maybe, we end up causing the problems by blaming others for our own momentary lack of judgement. So maybe we should just slow down a little instead of jumping to conclusions.

My point is that we're all just imperfect humans trying to find our way through the madness and chaos around us the best that we can. We're going to get things wrong. We're going to make mistakes. We're going to have little brush-ups with those around us. We're going to read things into situations that aren't there. But we need to understand that everyone else does the same things and faces the same struggles. A little bit of compassion, a little understanding, a little patience, they all go a long way!

So before we start grabbing stones and get to throwing, maybe taking a little time to reconsider things could stop that fight altogether. Seems to me that all of us have enough on our minds and in our lives everyday as it is. All of the unneeded and foolish fighting and arguing doesn't really help anyone. It only makes matters worse and can easily begin to strain relationships. Calm down, slow down, and give yourself a chance to think clearly before you jump in with fists flying. You just might be able to remember that the other person is just a human with a lot on their plate too.