Everyone has moments when they don't feel like being fair. Someone hurts our feelings, does something to disrupt our world, and instead of letting it slide, turning the other cheek, or simply try to look at the situation from their perspective..... We develop an attitude toward them. Heaven forbid someone rock our world by having the audacity to disagree with us. I'm not always fair, but I feel I am mostly fair. I sincerely step back and try to look at situations from all angles.... Not only that, but when I have been in the situation where someone is venting their anger to me about another person, and I believed the criticism is unfair..... I try to guide them to a more balanced way of looking at things. Sometimes it is difficult to make a stand like that. If a person has a strong personality, it can not only be a delicate dance, but also a dangerous one. Danger aside, it isn't in my nature to sit by while someone verbally tears another person's character to pieces. I can honestly say that standing up for others hasn't always served me well. There have been more than a few times when I have risked the friendship of one person, by standing up for someone else. I feel like standing up for those others would tear down is the Christ-like thing to do. In fact.... Not being charitable completely goes against what Christ teaches us. When I am in a situation where I have to make a choice whether remaining silent, and turn a deaf ear while a person destroys another's character, I measure my choice against 1 Corinthians 13..... In light of what the Word says, standing up for a friend is a no-brainer.
1 Corinthians 13New International Version (NIV)
13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
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