We can do better

“We can do better”

Did you read this statement as encouragement? Or did you read it as criticism?

Does how you read this say more about:
What I actually intended you to hear?
How you perceive me to speak?
How you choose to hear things?

I believe that “we can do better” is all about the opportunity that lies ahead of us. Looking forward and preparing ourselves to be and do the best we can is helpful. So I offer “we can do better” as an encouragement for what opportunities lie ahead, not as a criticism of the past.

But how we read something, how we receive something written, spoken, or acted out by another person usually has a lot to tell us about ourselves. As many of us will be with our families today — alongside the people who we have a lot of collective past,and baggage, and presupposed notions about — maybe we can prepare ourselves now to “do better” in how we see each other, how we hear each other, how we give the benefit of the doubt to each other, and how we avoid the pitfall of criticism and offense.

God bless you and Happy Thanksgiving!

Sensible people control their temper; they earn respect by overlooking wrongs.
Proverbs 19:11 NLT