But You Don’t Even Know Me!

Wrong, inappropriate and betraying perceptions; they come against us all. For some ‘logical’ reasons folks determine their view about us—good, bad or indifferent.

Yet, most of them don’t even know us. They only know themselves, and when they meet us, we reflect back to them who we see without even thinking about it. Of course, they’re doing this with us too.

None of us exists in a vacuum. We’re all becoming people more or less consistent with the prevailing perceptions of those held for or against us. This is why it’s important we’re planted in a healthy seedbed. Abusive and neglectful environments send us toward a thousand self-developed mirages of identity-forging depression.

And all this when they don’t even know us!

People are characteristically too quick to form an opinion of the people they relate with. And once these views are developed evidence accordant with those views is sought with implicit mastery. Incorrect views are vindicated in lies.

Changing people’s views of us is most times fraught with failure, because as people we’re naturally resistant to change.

The Biggest ‘Why’ of God – So Far as Self-Esteem is Concerned

Changing God’s mind is never an issue, on the other hand. The Being that knows us and formed us—knitting together the mind, heart and soul as much as the sinew—needs no convincing otherwise.

To say that the Lord of Glory accepts us would be a cosmic understatement. We’re never judged on innuendo and what ‘he thought she said and what he decided against her’. We’re judged to true bearing—which is a scarier thing. But at least we’re dealt with fairly. Beyond thought and deed we’re found eternally acceptable in God’s sight. And though sin interrupts the dynamic with the Spirit, God sees us beyond the sin, according to our belief in the Jesus of the Ages.

The biggest ‘why’ of God is about understanding that God is our greatest defender, and that life without belief must always be an incomplete and inadequate life. Besides, God knows us.

Planning To Interact In a Pre-judging, Overly Partial World

One thing we have no choice over is the need to interact in an oft-caustic world. There is never the critical mass of ‘lovely people’ we’d wish to deal with. Always there is at least one who’ll upset us.

In every sphere there is the person that Rick Warren referred to as the EGR (Extra Grace Required) person. Yes, we know it, and we can know it again when we respond in kind. Grace often begets grace and the other way around.

We will be pre-judged and people will get us wrong.

We too will get this wrong information about others and there needs to be a fight inside of each of us to resist it and see these individuals the way God sees them. Still, we’ll get it wrong.

Planning to successfully interact in these ways requires us to accept that despite people not knowing us, they’ll think they know us. Knowing this is important—it’s not personal. It’s the way humanity treats itself; each other.

Our job is to be cognisant of it as we relate with people. It means we could be less judgmental. A by-product of this is people might begin to see us as being less judgmental. We can only hope.

© 2011 S. J. Wickham.