Right part 4
Doing the right thing isn't about being right all the time. If that makes any sense. Because I've found that it is more important to be KIND than to be "right." Its more important to maintain relationships than to win arguments. It's more important to have the right word than the last word. More important to lift people up than to slam them down. Nobody has ever made themselves look good by making someone else look bad. That's the wrong way to go about it. Look at what Jesus said in Luke 14:8-10 (NLT), "When you are invited to a wedding feast, don't sit in the seat of honor. What if someone who is more distinguished than you has also been invited? The host will come and say, 'Give this person your seat.' Then you will be embarrassed, and you will have to take whatever seat is left at the foot of the table! Instead, take the lowest place at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees you, he will come and say, 'Friend, we have a better place for you!' Then you will be honored in front of all the other guests." When you try to exalt yourself--or toot your own horn to put it in some more modern lingo--you end up worse off than you were. But if you just go about your business... do what you do because its in your heart to do it... people will notice. Maybe not everybody, but the right people WILL notice. And I believe in quality over quantity. One person truly having your back is better than having a ton of "friends" who abandon you when you're no longer giving THEM what they need. Relationships have to be a two way street. If its one person giving and giving and giving and never getting anything... they'll run out of gas. And I'm not saying you can run out of love, because you can't, because you're connected to the unlimited source of love--the God who IS love who lives inside you--but I'm saying when you bang your head against the wall, all you usually come away with is a headache. So love everybody. Give people everything you've got and everything you are. But know when to say when. Once you've given it your all, its either enough... or its not. And either way you've done what you can do. If you give something (or someone) everything you have and everything you are... you've done the right thing. Whether it works out or not. Whether it works out the way you want it to or not. And if you can't give it everything you've got... you probably shouldn't be messing around with it in the first place. I always tell me kid, "If you do your best, I'll be proud of you." And if you're not gonna do your best, you might not even want to bother with it. I believe its better to have nothing than the wrong thing. I think settling is one of the worst things we can do. Because there's so much more available to us than we could ask or even think. God has given us everything we would ever need. Simply because He loves us and wanted us to have it. And we experience it... by giving it away. By sharing it. Sharing that gift. Sharing that love. Sharing what we've got. Sharing who we are. That's the right thing to do. That's the right way to live. Not being right by proving someone else wrong, but by giving what we've got without making a big deal about it. I think I want to hit this phrase tomorrow, but I'll use it to end tonight's Rant: When someone blesses you, never forget it, when you bless someone never remember it!"