positive intent

It’s easy to talk about balance. Equality. Treating others better than yourself.

But when we come in contact with someone that balances us, it’s easier to be polarized than balanced.

Take politics.

The beauty of the American system is the balance two parties collaborating together brings. They balance each other out.

Somehow the political landscape was turned into a story of winning an losing. And things get dirty quick. People who are both fighting for good (in different ways) get cast as evil, and the mudslinging starts.

Or theology.

There is a lot to a God as big as the one who created the heavens and earth. He’s multifaceted. But a lot of theological camps back themselves into a sliver of beliefs and dismiss anyone who doesn’t agree with every nuance of their system.

The beauty and texture of God is lost in myopathy and unity is destroyed for the sake of being correct in a fabricated argument.

We’ve lost positive intent.

The foundational assumption that the other person is a human, struggling to understand and do what is right.

That when it comes to how their country is run, they want what’s best for themselves and their family.

That when it comes to what they believe about God, they want to understand and follow Him and that their beliefs are still being shaped.

That we are all in this together.

Positive intent demands humility. It demands that I think of others as better than myself. That I die to always having to be right.

It’s a resurrected way of living in a world that is dying in an inability to embrace diversity.