Corking the Bottle

This post today is for Karen. If your name isn't Karen, please read it anyway. I found the following in Everybody Always by Bob Goff ( https://www.thomasnelson.com/p/everybody-always/ ) : "Trolls aren't bad people; they're just people I don't really understand.... There are plenty of people I don't understand. I suppose some are trolls and some aren't. God doesn't see people the way I do, though. The ones I see as problems, God sees as sons and daughters, made in His image. The ones I see as difficult, He sees as delightfully different. The fact is, what skews my view of people who are sometimes hard to be around is that God is working on different things in their lives than He is working on in mine."

I attended a retreat today for members of the community council for a service group. One exercise was to take the word "run" and write several words we associate with it. As a former long-distance runner, my words were things like marathon, jog, trot, trophy, fitness, exercise. Across the room sat a Metro Councilman. His words had to do with election, meeting, chairman, campaign, vote. He and I own different perspectives and backgrounds. He lives in the same neighborhood as me, but in a sense, he comes from a different place. That's an important learning for me, who still struggles sometimes with people who are radically different. I'm more understanding and less judgemental than I used to be, but I still have to deal with a few trolls under my bridge. "Trolls aren't bad people; they're just people I don't really understand. Here's the deal: it's how we treat the trolls in our lives that will let us know how far along we are in our faith...