Try This The Next Time You Are Treated Unfairly

There are times when I don’t feel I am treated fairly or am taking on undue criticism and I am left defeated and down on myself. When this happens, I have this trick that I use to work through the situation.

 I realize that the person or persons responding to me may not have the right lenses on. Their lenses are clouded with their biases and preferences, with their own fears and prejudices, with their own sin and insecurity, with their own history and baggage. Then, I imagine Christ’s view of me.

You see, Christ is not clouded with sin, does not have decades of hangups and wounds to overcome, and doesn’t have a selfish agenda that I am just in the way of. This practice helps me realize that often my heart is in the right place and that I am doing all that I can do and that the only person that matters (Christ) is proud of me and encouraging me. I understand, not that I can do no wrong, God knows, but that meeting the expectations of a person beset with a potentially wide range of other issues is often impossible. 

I realize that what they want from me I can’t always provide but they don’t know that. Christ does though and he is giving me the benefit of the doubt and seeing my heart for what it is – flawed, burdened, broken, immature, tainted, longing to be devoted, twisted, loving, and good natured. Christ can handle my contradictions and the paradoxes of maturity mixed with immaturity. And he is okay with it and is so patient and loving and encouraging.

It bears mentioning that I may not have the right lenses on either and that my view of another person and their actions will be clouded by my own brokenness and sin and selfishness. That I may not be seeing the other person with the eyes of Christ.

“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

When you are faced with the disappointment of others or harsh criticism or difficult relationship issues, take a moment and ask yourself, “How is Christ seeing me right now?” If he is seeing you differently than how these other people are seeing you then stick with the Christ view. That is going to be closer to the truth.