The Missing Ingredient

     To love God's people is one of my sacrosanct goals because I believe this to be one of my duties as a Christian. I pray for this daily. But most of the time I caught myself disliking people to the point of allowing them to make me feel miserable. I wonder then, why these very people whom I vowed to love, are the ones preventing me from loving them? 
     Yesterday the answer to my question was laid before me. It was from the blog post of Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen where she cited the three pillars of goodness, which are: reverence for life, wisdom, and kindness. Reverence for life struck me hard. My mind went silent for a few minutes. A bell rang in my ear. My heart of hearts told me, "this is what we missed." Yeah, all along in my journey I forgot to revere God's people.
     I may be surrounded with not so perfect people, but this does not give me the right to focus on their shortcomings. If I were to love them, I should do the following things: accept the fact that these people could never be perfect just as I am, believe that despite the imperfect surface, deep inside lies the goodness and greatness of these people, and most of all, revere the life in them. For in revering them, I revere not only them, but also the One who gives them life as well as my life too. Finally, to love them would be much easier.

"I wish you the peace that passes all understanding, the peace that comes from a faith in something much greater than ourselves, a God who is loving and kind and gentle. Millions of people have come across this peace, from the monks who spend day after day in prayer to the  people who have passed through the program of Alcoholics Anonymous in order to clean up their lives and stop allowing their lack of inner peace to destroy them. A lack of peace in our lives can be one of the most destructive forces in the world, and I hope that you never feel the loss of peace in your life." ~ Living Life Fully