We may all be wrong, but we all can’t be right
By: Thomas V Benge
Tags: Respect, Love, Strength, Together, Unity

“When its clear practice unity. When it unclear allow freedom. In all things be love”

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash

“A team is not a group of people who work together. A team is a group of people who trust each other” — Simon Sinek

More now than ever, it seems that the differences of who we are is what we lead with and the thing that we are most often concentrated on. Everyone is fighting for a seat at the table, to have their voice be heard, to be found as the ones who are right. But what we are not seeing is that in our vigor and often fury to not be “have nots”, we are leaving a wake of destruction wherever we go. We will never come together through seeing our separateness, but only in acknowledging our sameness.

We live at a time where it has become almost effortless to simply look at the snapshots of people’s lives and form complete stories about who “they” are and how “they” should have or could have especially when we get to fill in all the missing parts of another’s life from the comfort of the chaos that is our own existence. The reality, it is rarely as simple and often more complicated than anyone outside of that existence may ever know.

A really good friend of mine often says that the difficulty in how we relate to each other is because we often miss the big picture and backstory of one another’s lives. If we are truly honest about how much we really know about one another, especially in comparison to how much access we have to one another (think social media), we know very little by comparison.

Photo by Drew Hays on Unsplash

So, when we don’t know, how do we connect in a way that allows us and others the room to practice becoming the strongest version of ourselves?

Start with Agreement

This is not code for “just do you boo!” Nor is saying that we are just okay with what everyone does, but suggests that we clear out the rubble of divisiveness and that we find the place where there is commonality. It is much harder to disconnect and judge when we see ourselves in others. Brene Brown says “move in, its much harder to hate up close”.

2. Allow others to be in Process

We are all somewhere in our journey. That journey is generally moving away from or towards something. Being brutally honest (not sure why we attach violence to being authentic, but I digress…), for everyone YOU or I think is not where they should be, there are ten other folk that feel or think the same about us. We must be okay with giving one another the space to become what they may be. No one will ever make it in their lives on the timetable of another.

3. Lend your Strength

The most powerful thing that we can do is love. Not as a mere feeling, but as daring, fear crushing action. Pastor Tony Evans says that love expressed as an action is “compassionately and righteously seeking the best of another”. When we deal with one another in the chaos of becoming (ours and theirs), it is always good to stop and ask…”What would great look like here?” Great is most often the loving thing, the sacrificial thing, the strong thing.

Photo by Vicky Sim on Unsplash

Authentic existence is scary because it is often messy, uncertain and painful. But only in authentic living are the conditions right for us to become the strongest most vibrant versions of ourselves. There is no real environment for together without it.