We've probably all been there.That
all too annoying situation when the last person in the restroom used up the TP without replacing the roll. Or maybe to assuage their conscience they generously left one or two squares to be peeled off the cardboard for the next person's use. (And lest you think I am venting about the person I'm married to, let me just say that I am thinking of my workplace and even church...gasp!). A phrase pops into my mind when I encounter this situation: Integrity is
changing out the toilet paper roll when no one is watching. Hopefully, no one
ever is watching, but you get the idea.The simple act of changing out a toilet
paper roll is a small way of saying that you aren’t the only person who matters and that you care about others' quality of life. No one else
might know if you were the last person in the restroom, but that doesn’t matter
to someone with good character. What matters is doing the kind and considerate
thing.
I've been thinking about this as it relates to loving
people. I used to (and sometimes still do) operate under the assumption that as
long as I was nice to someone’s face it didn’t matter what my thoughts towards them were. Intellectually, I knew that Jesus taught something different. He had some strong words for people who hate or insult their brother (Matthew 5:21-22) and one of his followers summarized his teaching on the matter by saying "Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer..." (I John 3:15). He also taught that we are to love and pray for our enemies and those who persecute us (and this most certainly would include the people who simply get under our skin). But, in my day-to-day interactions I have often allowed myself to
harbor anger and ugly thoughts towards people I find to be difficult and
frustrating. On the outside I could be courteous while internally focusing upon
everything I found to be distasteful about them.
But like the toilet paper scenario, I have been reminded
lately that good character isn't about my image and appearing to be a good person, but about becoming the
kind of person Jesus wants me to be—from the inside out. Choosing to be
courteous and even “faking” to like someone more than you do is part of being a
mature adult and is certainly better than nothing. It’s also true that our
hearts often change in the process of doing the right thing, even if we are
only initially doing it because it is the right thing. C.S. Lewis offers
this valuable insight:
“Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your
neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great
secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come
to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking
him more. If you do him a good turn, you
will find yourself disliking him less.”-Mere Christianity, p.116
But I think that at
the most basic level, acting “as if” I love others starts with the thoughts I
think about them. I have to remind myself of the truth about other people. That
for all of their sin-wrought flaws, they are staggeringly beautiful and good
creations, fearfully made in the image of a good and loving God. They are not
obstacles to my happiness or inconveniences to be mocked, gossiped over,
ignored, or treated with disdain. I can choose to see what is good in them, and
if that is not possible at times, I can grieve over what sin has done in their
lives and ask their Creator to restore the fullness of his image in them and in
me.
As I change the way I think about people I can then (or
simultaneously) add more concrete actions of love and service to my
interactions with them, with prayer of course, being at the center. But if
circumstances do not permit tangible expressions of love, I can know that my
character is still being changed as I choose to guard against unloving thoughts, and resolve look for traces of the one whose image they bear, and to pray that they might receive
what is the very best for them. My feelings may not instantaneously change, but
that doesn’t mean that I am not choosing to love.
An outward display of courtesy masking an ugly heart won’t
change me into a person with good character. I must, with God's Spirit empowering me, do the hard but good work
of changing the way I think and even changing the way I think about the way I
think. This is repentance and this is what leads to change.
Once again, Lewis helps us to see the importance of each
choice—whether it be changing out the toilet paper roll or remembering the
glory of God in another human being:
“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is
why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite
importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point
from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never
dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss
of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an
attack otherwise impossible.”-Mere Christianity, p. 117
