We\u2019re at Don Miguel\u2019s restaurant for a great morning breakfast. Shawntel exclaims as she reads the menu: \u201cOh great! They have avocado toast. That\u2019s what I\u2019m having!\u201d And she says so to the waiter. I join in. \u201cSame here!\u201d Hannah repeats: \u201cSame here!\u201d What we all, plus the waiter, hear from Barrett is: \u201cSame here on a bagel!\u201d So, the waiter repeats our orders back to us all, including: \u201cFour avocado toasts with one on a bagel!\u201d Barrett replies: \u201cNo, one of those should be salmon on a bagel!\u201d We all chime in \u201cBarrett, you said \u201cSame here!\u201d He said, \u201cNo, I said \u2018salmon\u2019!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a humorous conversation \u2013 we all heard \u201cSame here!\u201d But what we heard wasn\u2019t correct! What Barrett said WAS correct. He was self-assured about what he wanted and said \u2013 and it WASN\u2019T avocado toast. It certainly made for hilarious follow-up discussion and conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ryan adds. \u201cIsn\u2019t that so true in our relationships? A wife or husband says one thing, but the spouse hears something totally different. They argue about \u201cWell, you said!\u201d \u201cNo, I didn\u2019t \u2013 I said\u2026\u2026.\u201d Each of them are correct because each heard the story differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe said\/She said\u201d has many meanings in today\u2019s world. It plays a huge, and often unfair role in many areas of life \u2013 in marriage relationships, between a teacher and student, in politics, in the news, in friendships and business meetings. It\u2019s someone\u2019s word against someone else\u2019s word and can happen in the best of relationships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is a saying that goes \u201cperception is reality\u201d. Without a completely objective measure, like an audio or video recording, it is impossible to establish the truth. Unfortunately, many people, maybe even you, expend a tremendous amount of energy and emotion battling someone else\u2019s perception to be right. It may have been us when we were relating an event to someone and our spouse or friend interrupts with: \u201cThat\u2019s not what happened!\u201d Or \u201cI didn\u2019t say that!\u201d Before long, things begin to spiral out of control unless someone steps in to help them clarify their stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The truth is, we never experience an event or conversation the same way as another person. More to the point, we will never really convince them they didn\u2019t experience it the way they believe they did. There is always our version and their version of what happened. All of us \u2013 including the waiter heard Barrett say: \u201cSame here on a bagel\u201d when in reality he actually said \u201cSalmon on a bagel!\u201d He was the one who was right. We were the ones who heard it wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in relationships how do we stop the power struggle? We must drop our end of the rope. We don\u2019t have to justify or defend our perspective. It is filtered through the lens of our own memory and that\u2019s what matters. How do we win? We do it by not having to be right. As soon as we recognize the conversation is headed in the wrong direction, we must STOP talking and reacting. If we realize we made a wrong turn on the road, we wouldn\u2019t keep driving away from where we\u2019re trying to go. It is the same in our conversations. We can tell when the conversation is going south. What is more important, being right or being righteous?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being right isn\u2019t what Christian living is all about. Being righteous means willingly following God’s commands, and He has instructed us to love Him and to love one another. God wants us to admit that He knows better than we do and to follow Him with trust and humility. God doesn’t want us to argue with each other about who’s right. He wants us to work together as His servants in the world. We could spend the rest of our lives debating each other. Or we could decide that it doesn’t matter whether we’re right or wrong so long as we are doing our best to follow God and love our neighbors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Being righteous means that it’s OK if we’re not right all the time\u2014we just need to keep God ever before our eyes and continue to care about the people who are working through the right and wrong answers just like us. Personally, I want to be far more righteous than having to be always right \u2013 except when I order my next meal and I want avocado toast and NOT salmon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u2019re at Don Miguel\u2019s restaurant for a great morning breakfast. Shawntel exclaims as she reads the menu: \u201cOh great! They have avocado toast. That\u2019s what I\u2019m having!\u201d And she says so to the waiter. I join in. \u201cSame here!\u201d Hannah repeats: \u201cSame here!\u201d What we all, plus the waiter, hear from Barrett is: \u201cSame here…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14043,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20093,20092],"tags":[20082,20083,20080,1210,1769,20089,20081,20090,962,40,20091,20086,20085,1142,12713,20084,20088,610,20087],"class_list":["post-14042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-avocado-toast","category-being-right","tag-avocado-toast","tag-bagel","tag-being-right","tag-blog","tag-christian","tag-debating","tag-don-miguels-restaurant","tag-follow-god","tag-he-said-she-said","tag-inspiration","tag-love-neighbors","tag-objectie","tag-perception-is-reality","tag-relationships","tag-righteousness","tag-salmon","tag-servants","tag-truth","tag-work-together"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14044,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14042\/revisions\/14044"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}