Day 7, The Love Dare: Love Believes the Best

 Love Believes the Best

 [Love] believes all things, hopes all things –1 Corinthians 13:7.

Today’s dare: Love Believe the Best. Get two sheets of paper.  On the first one, spend a few minutes writing out positive things about someone.  Then do the same thing with negative things on the second sheet.  Place both sheets in a secret place for another day.  There is a different purpose and plan for each.  At some point during the remainder of the day, pick a positive attribute from the first list and thank the person for having this characteristic.

Today’s reading hit awfully close to home.  When I first started dating, I could find no fault with the person I was dating.  It’s true.  He was absolutely perfect, the perfect man, perfect for me, and perfect for life.  Even after the first couple of months together (dating), he was still awfully amazing.  We had a few differences, but that’s all they were–not problems, just differences. Then I don’t know what happened.  One day I realized that he couldn’t do anything right, and I felt like he was feeling the same about me, and we broke up as a result.  (Obviously, there was more to the story than that, but this isn’t the time or the place to get into that.)  We decided it was better to figure out how to live apart than to try to live together.  SO glad we made that decision.

When you don’t like someone, it’s easy to interpret every single thing they do as ill-willed and hateful. Likely, that is just a projection of your own feelings toward that person and it is most definitely not love.  Love does not jump to conclusions.  Love is not easily offended

When you make a transition from negative to positive thinking, you can actually focus on the things you like about people — even those who are difficult to be around.  As you make a habit of positive thinking, hopefully, you will begin to genuinely love the person, emotionally as well as with your actions.  But we must remember that we focus on the positive side of people because it’s what God requires, not because it’s what they deserve. If God dealt us the hand we DESERVED, we’d all be in a world of hurt. Let’s take a moment to thank Him for unmerited 

Let’s get down to the real issue here.  Love knows about Depreciation and does not live in denial that it exists. 

But love chooses not live there.

I must decide to stop thinking the worst about people and lingering there after every frustrating event with them.  It does me no good and drains the joy out of any relationship.

Love chooses to believe the best about people.  It gives them the benefit of the doubt.  It refuses to fill in the unknowns with negative assumptions.  And when our worst hopes are proven to be true, love makes every effort to deal with them and move forward.  As much as possible, love focuses on the positive.

It’s time to start thinking differently.  It’s time to let love lead my thoughts and my focus.  The only reason I should glance in the door of Depreciation Room is to know how to pray for every other person.  It’s time to move into the Appreciation Room, to settle down and make it my home. 

I was thinking about my lists all day. I actually did not feel good about making the negative list as I really didn’t want to feel or think about the negative today; Some time between last night and this morning I considered ending the love dare. I never really got to the point of seriously considering it as I am sure that many people go through these same emotions. It is at this point of the dare for me that I realized that the Love Dare is about changing me and not changing someone else.

I do have really close friends who I care about and really do like. I do my best to say/show how much I care about them. There are so many songs that remind me of her that i can't help but listen to the radio as much as I can. They make me smile on days where I would rather be depressed. Talk to me when I feel like I have nowhere else to turn.

I was going to share my lists, but this is not an anonymous blog, I feel like they’re a bit too private to show the entire world.  I did find that there are WAY more positive things about the people in my life than there are negative things.  I also discovered that many of the negative things started with “sometimes” or “too,” which means that they are subjective.  They are in my opinion.  They are not character flaws.     

I pray that God changes me more, so I can begin to see the best in everyone.