“Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up.”
Romans 15:2

Growing up, I was playing hide-and-seek with my cousin. I counted to 100, turned around, and he was standing right in front of me when he suddenly threw a stick at me. It hit me directly in the eye and somehow got stuck there. My cousin was understandably freaking out, trying to explain that I had a stick sticking out of my eye. Meanwhile, I kept telling him: “It’s no big deal.”

Apparently, I have always been an “it’s no big deal” kind of guy.

Sometimes that’s helpful. Not every problem needs to become a crisis. But there is also a danger in minimizing things, especially when I’m not the one who gets to decide how big the deal is.

We do this all the time in relationships:

• “I was just joking.”
• “I didn’t mean it that way.”
• “You’re being too sensitive.”
• “That’s not what I meant.”

Notice what all those statements have in common. They focus on me and my intentions rather than the other person and their feelings. It’s when we defend what we intended while dismissing the impact of our behaviors.

I may not have intended to embarrass someone. I may not have intended for my words to hurt. I may not have intended to make someone feel ignored or unimportant. But good intentions don’t erase harmful impact.

One of the most dangerous things about sin is our ability to justify it. We become our own defense attorneys, explaining why what we did really wasn’t that bad. And usually, what we’re trying to protect isn’t the relationship. We’re trying to protect ourselves from the uncomfortable feeling that maybe we were wrong.

That’s why Paul tells us to seek the good of our neighbor. Love turns our attention outward. Love asks, “How did my actions affect them?” That’s a much harder question. It requires enough humility to listen when someone says, “That hurt,” without immediately explaining why they shouldn’t feel hurt.

There are certainly times when people misunderstand us. We aren’t responsible for every emotion another person experiences. But maturity means being willing to consider that their experience may reveal something about us that we are trying to avoid.

So the invitation this week is to consider how have my words, actions, attitudes or even neglect impacted others in my life.