One Piece of Information

My friend Vince Vanderveen has a wonderful teaching on having the grace to not take offense when we are wronged. He uses an illustration of two people walking down narrow perpendicular blind alleys and bumping into each other at the intersection. If we were one of those people, we could easily become upset that this person bumped into us. “Watch where you are going! Didn’t you see me?... That hurt!”

However, Vince says that if the person who bumped into us was carrying a big box that didn’t allow him to see us, we may still be initially upset that they bumped into us, but we would understand why they bumped into us. 

Vince says that we are often just one piece of information away from understanding why people hurt us. If we could see the heavy burden that people are carrying, we would understand better why they bumped into us; why they have hurt us; why they don’t see our needs.

Being just one piece of information away from understanding was illustrated to me once while driving. I approached a busy intersection that had a police car with lights flashing at the side of the road, behind another vehicle. All the traffic merged slowly into the left lane to give the police officer space. The car in front of me inched slowly into the intersection but the light turned red. Not wanting to proceed through the intersection on red, he stopped and blocked the intersection. The cars who had been stopped at the light moved around him. They had seen the police car and presumably had grace for the whole situation because they saw what was happening. 
 
After several cars drove past this blocking car, one car approached very quickly, who clearly did not see what had led to this car being stopped in the intersection. As he went around the blocking car, the death stare he gave that motorist clearly indicated how peeved he was that he was being delayed for 2 seconds. HE WAS ONE PIECE OF INFORMATION AWAY FROM UNDERSTANDING WHY THIS PERSON INCONVENIENCED HIM. He had made a judgement that didn’t have all the facts.

We need to have grace for one another when they inconvenience us, or even worse, hurt us. We don’t have all the information or know the circumstances that have caused this person to act in a certain way. We don’t see the box they are carrying that has blinded them to seeing what we need. We haven’t seen the car crash that has put this person in our way. 

“Lord, I don’t understand why this person would treat me this way, but they must be carrying a heavy burden that I can’t see. Please give me the grace to not get offended.”

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Romans 12:18