A lady walking downtown quickened her pace as she grabbed her phone and called her friend. “You’re not going to believe this!” she said in a voice quivering with excitement. “I just walked past a café, and through the window I saw my pastor having lunch with his secretary. They were talking and laughing, and suddenly he leaned over and kissed her!”
Her friend drew a deep breath and replied with amazement, “Wow. I had no idea your pastor’s wife was also his secretary!”
Instead of assuming the worst about her friend’s pastor, the woman who heard this news assumed the best.
When describing the qualities of love in 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul states in verse 7,
“Love … believes all things.”
This doesn’t mean that love is gullible. (By the way, did you know that the word “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary? – If you believe that, you’re gullible!) The point of this statement in 1 Cor. 13:7 is that instead of thinking the worst about people, love believes the best. Love is not suspicious or cynical. If there’s a doubt about a person’s motives for doing or not doing something, love always opts for the more favorable possibility.
If you have ever been misjudged by others, you know how unpleasant such an experience can be. Several years ago Alistair Begg, the popular radio preacher and lead pastor of Parkside Church, was diagnosed with prostate cancer and underwent surgery. Thankfully it was successful. But the recovery process was slow and painful. For the first little while after surgery, Alistair had to take “baby steps” to get from point A to point B.
One day during this recovery period, Alistair was walking across the street at a pace much slower than the other pedestrians. He could feel the glare of the drivers as they grew impatient. As I recall Alistair’s telling of the story, one of them honked at him and chided him for taking his “good ol’ time.” Alistair had a perfectly legitimate reason for walking slowly. Had the drivers known that he was actually in pain and progressing as quickly as he could, they would have been more patient and understanding.
Alistair then thought, “How many times have I grown impatient while waiting for people to cross the road? How often have I thought that they were just being jerks, without knowing their circumstances? Perhaps they, too, were in pain or had some other reason for walking slowly.” Having been on the receiving end of other people’s misjudgment, Alistair sought to be more understanding himself – to give others the benefit of the doubt, to assume the best about them rather than the worst.
That’s what love does. Let’s make it our aim to do so, with the Lord’s help.