I recently had an online discussion about a difficult subject.
The two of us began on seemingly opposite sides, with potential for entrenchment and division. That didn’t happen.
Why?
It certainly didn’t happen because I am especially good these sorts of conversations. I’m not. Sadly, I tend to speak before I listen, to prove my point before seeking to understand.
On a list of current topics, it’s likely we would disagree more than we agreed. There was plenty of room for this conversation to become a pointless argument.
This time, though, the two of us found common ground.
Looking back at the entire thread, it’s easy to understand why this occurred. I’ll bet you could list the reasons.
We each began from a place we share – faith in Jesus.
We assumed best intentions. And affirmed that assumption multiple times.
We listened to each other. Honestly, he did a better job of this than I did, but in the end we each understood the other’s point of view. And frankly, we weren’t all that far apart.
I confess – I opened expecting a confrontation. I’m glad my friend and I were able to look past our differences.
There’s plenty of room these days for drawing lines, for division, for assuming evil intent, for sarcastically dismissing those with whom we disagree. All of that, of course, is about judgment. I have plenty of logs in my own eye to worry about without searching for specks in others’ eyes.
Why share this?
In many ways, our culture is so divided. It’s tempting to circle the wagons and hunker down with the folks on our team.
This single conversation reminds me, and maybe you, that we have more in common than we think.
Following Jesus, we can find common ground.