People Are People, Sinners, All Loved By God

“People are people and people will be people so when people do what people do they are just people and All people are loved by God!”

— James Rowdy

People are people

So why do we expect

Time and again

To always receive respect?

We know ourselves enough

How often we are wrong

So we can know every time

None of us is always strong.

***

FORGIVENESS, patience, compassion, empathy, warmth, understanding, and a plethora more of virtue owes its presence to the phenomenon of accepting that people are people; all of whom are loved by God, notwithstanding their works of relative madness.

Many varietals of conflict boil over because there isn’t the instinct of understanding that people are simply people – weak and inept, at times, individuals who are usually trying their best, or close enough to it.

When we consider the ongoing and intermittent conflicts we have, personally – and our minds fly to faces we see in an instant because we all find some that grate on us – we can consider that the face we see is a person, as we, ourselves, are a person. Neither they nor we are without fault or free of culpability regarding the tenuousness of the relationship we share. Sure, we put up with each other. It goes both ways. And yet, God loves us both equally, notwithstanding our ‘statuses’ with him (whether we consider ourselves saved or not).

Lowering Our Expectations

Why do we expect more from others than we might expect from ourselves? I’m not talking per situation – I’m talking generally. We are critical of people for failing us, yet we are shocked when we face the same critique. Why? It’s simple, such a critique, whether it’s warranted or not, stings. It stings possibly more than the sting we felt to be let down – to criticise in the first place.

Lowering our expectations is about giving the persons within our realm of influence the breathing space to be human beings; to forget from time to time, to disappoint us, to even betray us. It doesn’t really matter what the intent was when we understand that there are weaknesses in us all that cause us to compromise or miss the mark.

When we finally lower our expectations of others, and of life in general, we have a clearer passage way to joy and peace; and contentment is achievable.

***

Why can God love sinners? He lowered his expectations of us, by sending his only Son to be righteousness for us. Jesus died for the person we have a problem with. Does that mess with our thinking? It should.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.