I have another confession to make.

There have been a few people over the course of my life that I just knew were out to get me or hurt me. It felt like every. single. thing they did or said to me was to try to absolutely drive me bonkers! Like they just sat around trying to find ways to make my life miserable! (How egocentric of me to think I matter this much to these people! That their lives are focused so much on me!)

Have you ever met one of these people?

Lately I’ve been thinking people like this probably aren’t as bad as I make them out to be. In fact, they could feel the same way about me! I’ve probably not been the nicest person at times. They just might think that I’m the one out to get them! And because of the ways I’ve acted and reacted in the past, I can see how they might think that!

But my intentions have never been to hurt anyone. My intentions are good. I want the best for everyone. I want people to be happy. I want to succeed, but I also want others to succeed. I want so many good things!

But people don’t see our intentions, do they? They only see our actions, hear our words, read our body language, etc. They don’t hear all my thoughts of good intentions. And I don’t hear theirs.

I think we all have good intentions the vast majority of the time. We don’t mean to hurt others. We don’t set out to be mean. We’re just not that great at communicating or acting on our intentions sometimes.

I’m trying really hard to choose to believe the best of people. To keep reminding myself about the other person’s good intentions, gifts, etc. To really think about things before I let myself get ticked off so easily. I’m choosing to look for good in people. It’s really easy to see the bad and gripe and complain. But griping and complaining never help. They’re never the solution.

The solution lies in listening carefully, trying to understand the other person and their views, thinking about what’s best for the other person, how I can help them, and lots of prayer!

I wish we could see each other’s intentions. It sure would make things easier! All I can do is control my actions toward others and try to help them see on a consistent basis that I do have good intentions and what’s best for them in mind.