Assuming The Best...

In the process of working as an educator and counsellor, it is ultimately important to assume the best about people you deal with. If they blew it in a given circumstance or fell short by some artificial human standard, I need to assume the best about the motivation of that person. If I don't, I will never understand who they are when the dialogue begins. The last time I checked, we all believe that our motivation for what we have done is mostly appropriate, regardless of the judgment of others. Do I blow it in that regard ? Oh yeah, big time. But, I keep coming back to the fact that I must assume the best.
Why ? When the God that made you and I showed up as Jesus 2000 years ago, he always assumed the best about people.
His closest followers saw him dealing with people who had just blown it or had lives that were just "wrong". But because of His regard for those people, they felt understood: perhaps for the first time in their lives. I often find that there are colleagues as likely to forget this important perspective as the clients I work with.
Somewhere, at some point earlier in life, someone accepted me, regardless of my foolishness and it molded my acceptance of others. It is one of the few human gifts we can pass on regardless of DNA. I am thankful that in a formative, mistake-prone phase of my life someone assumed the best about me...