Thoughts On Successfully Living With Others
Categories: Church of Christ Bulletin Articles
When I was a teenager, my father told my brothers and I that one day, he wouldn’t be around to help teach us how to get along with people different than ourselves, so we might as well start learning how to successfully live with others today. As I look back on that conversation, I realize that my father was right in providing us with his wise insight.
We must somehow learn to live with folks whose manners annoy us, whose practices offend us, and whose ideas disturb us. We must get along with these difficult people, or else be forever at odds with them, with ourselves, and with the world (Romans 12:18; cf. Psalm 34:14; Hebrews 12:14).
Our tendency is to build a wall around us that will shut out those who differ from us. However, let us realize that each time we erect a barrier to shut someone out that we don’t much care for, we also shut ourselves in (note the attitude of Joseph‘s brothers in Genesis 37 versus their attitude in Genesis 50).
We must remember, that no matter what minority interest we may choose to safeguard, we are at the same time, members of a larger society, and these larger and more inclusive loyalties must be preserved (Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 16:15-16). It is not wise to exalt our particular minority interest to the exclusion of the larger loyalty (Matthew 6:19-33). The part is never greater than the whole (no man is an island to himself – Romans 14:7-8; cf. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Gal. 2:20). No person lives or dies without influencing others (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10; Hebrews 11:4).
It is well to let the things for which we stand, win their way into the hearts of others through their own merit, to allow causes and issues to grow in strength through their own inherent goodness, rather than trying to wall them out because of our own lack of understanding, jealously, pride or prejudice. In Texas English, don’t judge a book by its cover! For if we merely judge the outside of the book, we’ll never know what good might be on the inside of the book.
To successfully live with others then, we need to view whatever the situation is from the other person’s point of view, and not just our own (Philippians 2:1-5; cf. 1 Corinthians 13:4-5).
Let’s think about it!