Spiritual relationship help &
Building self esteem
Chicken Soup for the Soul cocreators Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen with Chris Karcher
ABC's Dr. Timothy Johnson,
Finding God in the Questions, and Chris
.
Lee Strobel, The Case for a Creator, and Chris Karcher
Spiritual relationship help &
Building self esteem
Spiritual relationship help &
Building self esteem
Disunity
Accepting people as they are is easy—as long as no people are involved.
One of the nicest things about writing is I can pontificate all day and everyone in the room agrees with me. A week of writing and my computer does not talk back once. I’m the boss. King of the keyboard. Ruler of words . . . until it goes in for editing.
It’s tempting to try and change people, to get them to see things our way. Who can blame us? On Father Knows Best, Betty, Bud, and “Kitten” always believed father really did know best. Television housewives of the 1950s and 1960s cleaned in pearl necklaces. The Brady Bunch merged six kids at the height of puberty from two divorced families without a hitch. The Walton brothers and sisters never went to bed without a “Good night, John-Boy.”
Read the challenge to which we are called: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”[i]
What’s wrong with not accepting people as they are? The fundamental problem is disunity. We experience hostility, judgment, and fear. We bicker and seek control. Disunity brings us out of relationship with one another. It makes it impossible to “love our neighbor as ourselves.”
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Copyright © 2003 by Christine N. Karcher. Chris Karcher is the author of Relationships of Grace, Amazing Things I Know About You, and Relationships of Grace Workbook. To order books and tapes, schedule Chris for speaking engagements, or subscribe to Chris’ newsletter, visit www.relationshipsofgrace.com, email order@relationshipsofgrace.com, or call 1-877-GET-GRACE (1-877-438-4722).