[cs_section style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; “][cs_row style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” inner_container=”true”][cs_column style=”padding: 0px; ” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][cs_text]When I was in Nepal trekking up and down the mountains was a tough chore. We would go up 3,000 feet just to go back down the 3,000 feet, and then go back up 2,800 feet. This was life for ten days – tough trekking up and down the Himalayas to reach our destination. As we would go up and down the mountain sides we could turn around and see just where we had been 3 hours earlier. It never stopped amazing me the distances we were covering and where we had just been only a few hours ago. We had traveled far.
Trekking in Nepal was tough, especially for me since my legs were weaker due to my MS. At times I thought to myself “why am I here?” Yet the trekking in Nepal was worth it. We got to set up medical camps at three locations, providing minor care and showing the love of Christ. It was tough but with each time I would look back to where I had just been I tried to see the good in the trekking that lay ahead. Looking back at my life I can see points where joys have shaped me one way while the trials shaped me another. But like trekking in Nepal my life has a larger purpose. It is not simply going from one mountain top to another but rather from one village of valuable people to another. What lay behind me, helping some in one village, pushed me to the next.
Life is no different from trekking. We move along, some of us with clear paths, some of us with fearful uncertainty, but we still move. Like a great current life pushes on us, never allowing us to stay still. Inevitably, there are times when we can look back and see where we had just come from. It is those moments in our past that have shaped us into who we are today. And like me staring back at the village I had just left not long ago, we can feel proud, humbled, nervous and hopeful. We also can feel crushed, hurt, abandoned, alone, even angry. The current of life will ensure that at some point we will all feel these things. That is just how it is.
When we meet people it is easy and rather common to determine another’s worth based on a conversation or two. To a certain extend we do need to size others up rather quickly. We need to be able to gauge whether one is trustworthy or not, whether one is reliable or not, good or not, whether one is genuine or a pretender. We do this so we “don’t cast pearls to pigs,” that is to allow others to trample us under foot.
At the same time we need to be careful not to cast assumptions on others. Some people may come across arrogant, as though they think they are better than others. The reality may be that person has been shaped by past moments to be simply a quiet person, confident in who they are but feel no need to boast about it. We need to allow others to build themselves to us, not us build them to what we think they are. We do not know where that person has been, what they have experienced, what joys and scars they carry. We need to allow others to show themselves to us in due time.
Conversely, most of us have had others make assumptions about us based on single moments in our lives. Sometimes these assumptions are correct, sometimes not. Bill may have met you when you were in the middle of a very trying time in your life. Normally you are a jovial person but life happened and at the moment Bill met you you were not. Bill makes an assumption of who you are and from that he created an incorrect opinion of you. We need to recognize this flaw in others and not get too upset when others make erroneous assumptions. Always remember, most people do not know where you have been and we need to be realistically patient with them.
When we meet others along our life’s journey we need to be careful not to make too many assumptions of others but rather give them the opportunity to build themselves to us. We also need to not get too upset when others make quick, and sometimes wrong assumptions of us. We do not know where they have been nor do they know where we have been. We should take the time to get to know each other, to know the joys and thrills, the ups and down, the heart aches, the trials – all those moments in each others lives that has shaped us into who we are. It is then we can truly appreciate and know each other. Until then do not get too upset or impatient with others. Always remember, they don’t know where you’ve been, God bless ’em.
Attempt it. Change it. Try it. Get to It![/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section]