This is not a fatuous comment. We don’t always act on this fact that everybody is somebody. Even that We are somebody. We can become dismissive of this, especially when it’s someone we think we know well – like family. I think it’s critical to be involved in all conversations, not just listening with half your thinking. I learned very young, thank heavens, that though we think we can end someone’s sentence or that we think we know what they are saying, that it isn’t always so. We may be surprised.
When we act by finishing the sentence (even when we are right) or responding to only the first half of the sentence rather than allowing the speaker to finish, we diminish them and we may not be right in what the speaker says next. I believe that this mindset plus my interminable questions (to discover if what they are saying is what I heard) formed my basis for communication. It makes for a more stable foundational basis for understanding. And, understanding really IS all it’s cracked up to be. It is so far superior than assuming.
It appears that sometimes we forget that those who have accepted Jesus as Lord are a new creation (2Corinthians 5:17). And if you are a new creation, so is your brother and sister in the Lord. We need a new paradigm and attempt to see others as God sees them – as Somebody. Equal. James 2:9 tells us that we can’t show partiality and view one person higher than the other. Unfortunately we do…. for a variety of reasons, none justifiable.
Perhaps the reason we shouldn’t engage in such thinking is that we end up missing who and what the person is. We are all unique with our own idiosyncrasies that add flavor and spice to who we are. If we don’t take the time and opportunity to see the other person as somebody then we diminish them and also cheat ourselves.
