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One man says he doesn't want any conflict, and that at the first appearance of one, he walks away! Another man will stand there and make sure that the other person gets to know what is wrong with him! The problem with the first man is that he is not contributing anything to resolving the conflict, and the second man doesn't realise that the way he does it is only fanning up the fire! One man takes pride saying that he is a man of few words, not realising that he is also silent even where he should be speaking, and another man says it is necessary to tell others what we think, and so he expresses his opinions without restraint! He doesn't seem to be bothered about the storms he creates by speaking out where he should have been quiet. All these people think they are right in what they do, and convinced that there is a good reason behind what they do.

This shows us that just because we think we are right, it doesn't necessarily mean that we are fully right. From the above examples, we can see that many times we think only about certain factors that are involved, and not all of them. It hasn't even occurred to us that there are other factors we haven't considered at all! Our ignorance is causing a lot of problems, but we think we have done the right thing!

At the first level, we have to reckon with the fact that even when what we do is outwardly right, there could be things wrong with our motives (Pr.21:2). But in examples like the above, our motives are right, but still our actions are far from being perfect. One way to notice this is to observe that the final outcome is not what we expected. We may blame the others for that, but don't we need to learn that we too ought to grow in understanding and become rounded off in different directions?

This also works in another way, "The first to plead his case seems right, Until another comes and examines him" (Pr.18:17). Unless we are very aware of this danger, this could affect us when we are trying to counsel or mediate between two people. The problem is that when one person tells us the story, he naturally enhances his good points, downplays his wrong, and exaggerates the other person's faults, and when we listen to the other person, we may even get a totally different picture!

All of us are broken in many ways because we have sinned, and we live in a broken world. This has affected how much we know, how biased we are, the prejudices we carry, the twists in our personality, etc. We can't become perfect just by being born again, but we have to grow towards perfection. How important it is to be humble, and acknowledge to ourselves our limitations in every direction, and keep learning at all times! The world wants us to build up our self-confidence, and when we deal with others, give off an impression of perfection. But, instead, as Christians, let us give up our confidence in ourselves and lean more and more on God, willing to be corrected and then also to learn.

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