Simple Is Better – The Loving Thing to Do

1 Corinthians 16:14: Let all that you do be done with love.

Gratitude Day 960

Yesterday, I wrote one of those hard emails. I was frustrated. A promised deadline was missed which now means making my deadline feel very impossible. I wanted to explain how frustrated I was. The ball has been dropped on their end and is affecting my ability to fulltime my obligations.

I wanted to be clear on how and why I felt this way. I had communicated multiple times about my expectations. I had taken extra steps to simplify their responsibilities. Instead of making sure what was provided to me was accurate, no one double checked things on their end.

Here’s the challenge: how could I communicate my disappointment, their lack of accountability and accuracy and not be a jerk? Could I be clear with my words, keep my cool, communicate how I feel and do it all in a compassionate, loving way?

I sure tried. The jury remains out if I accomplished my intention or not. I wanted my actions to speak volumes of how believers should treat one another. Whether it someone you love deeply, a business arrangement, someone you barely know or something that will impact your future, how we treat others matters.

Seriously. I believe this to my very core. How I treat others really must reflect how I want to be treated. Period. Whether it is an in-person conversation, a phone call, an online meeting or what I type that goes out onto the big, bold internet, how I treat other people matters. I want my actions and words to reflect the love I receive from God and extend this same compassion to others. Whether I feel love from them or not, I pray that I can be a person who treats others with pure loving kindness.

This is how we love our neighbor. This is the behavior Jesus modeled for us. It’s what he did with people who disappointed him. He looked beyond the difficult moment and treated them with compassion. Kindness. Love.

Yes, we should feel our range of emotions. I encourage this. But this does not give us a license to say awful things to them just because we can. Raising our voices and getting loud may make us feel better at the moment. It may even get someone’s attention because we have commanded it. When it leads to people talking over each other and no one listening to the other person, well, it becomes a circus.

When God wanted to get the people’s attention what did he do? Come in as a storm or with a loud voice or banging thunder? No. God came as a still, quiet voice. Just loud enough to be heard.

There are plenty of times I have gotten this wrong. Times when I was not compassionate in how I handled something or what I said. When I let my thoughts come immediately out of my mouth before thinking about them. Using my outside voice when my inside voice would have been more appropriate. Or maybe even a still quite voice would have been more effective.

I wasn’t sure sharing this example is a good idea. I’m still not. I’m going ahead and sharing it because I pray a little vulnerability will open up a conversation. A real conversation. It’s become too easy for us to sit behind our screens and say unloving things to each other because we’re convinced “we’re doing the right thing.” Let’s have a conversation with someone about choosing to be more loving in our actions. To everyone. Even with those we struggle with.

We need an alternative voice and means right now. Let all that you do be done with love. I know this gets tricky because how one person would define doing something with love might be different from how someone else defines this. Yet, I pray that when you – we – come into contact with people today we can honestly be the people who do things in love. And there is no question to the people around us that this is what we are doing.

Blessings –

Dianne

Holy God – We have so much to learn about this love stuff. How you unconditionally love us over and over again is beyond my comprehension. That’s why You are God and I am not. Soften my heart to love more like You. In one small way today. Amen.

Looking for a bit of daily inspiration? Check out my daily affirmation posts on Facebook and Instagram (Dianne Deaton Vielhuber and Simple Words of Faith.)

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