Is there anything about you that, if people only knew, they would not judge you so harshly? Maybe something physical, something so odd that you don’t tell anyone because no one would believe you, but it is something that explains a lot about you? Or maybe it is a fault that, by God’s grace, you have made much headway in overcoming — and what people are reacting negatively to is actually a much improved you! They should only know how bad you used to be!

We need to be aware, especially those who are endowed with natural equanimity, that what comes easy for you may be a moment-by-moment battle for others. It’s all good, because God uses that “thorn” they’re saddled with to develop a desperately pleasing clinging to Him in faith. But it might not look like much from the outside. The person looks to you like an oddball. The fact is she could be in a mental institution and — glory to God! — she is functioning in society. A little benefit of the doubt please.

We all want to be understood and accepted. But most of us have learned not to expect much from one another in the way of understanding and patience. How sad. We have learned that people are pretty much the same — Christian or non-Christian: they’re nice when you’re nice or when you appeal to them, and not nice when you sin or you look like a loser. Push a Christian more than an inch and he will react pretty much like a pagan.

But God has called us to be extraordinary. Paul chided the Corinthians for behaving like “mere men” (1 Corinthians 3:3). The place where God is glorified is the distance our love pushes through beyond where the world stops loving. Let us beseech the Lord for unkillable love. Let the world “[take] not that these men have been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).