I have been consistently thinking about something from my message I preached this past Sunday.  I shared an illustration about how we minimize our personal mistakes and maximize the mistakes of others.  When I was playing college basketball, there was another player I was competing with for important minutes.   He and I played the same position.  Coach was back and forth with who he played more:  me or this other guy.  When we were in films from either practice or games, coach would stop the tape and point out mistakes and successes.  When he pointed out my mistakes, I quickly found ways to minimize the issue and I would hope that he would forget about what he saw as quickly as possible.   When I got something right, I hoped he stayed in coach’s brain forever.  But when my teammate with whom I was competing made mistakes, I did some pretty interesting stuff.  I would maximize the mistake and I would hope coach never forgot.  And with his wins, I minimized them and hoped coach overlooked it.

My behavior in this situation was selfish and immature.  It reveals something we do all the time.  We are awesome at spinning any situation for our own good, even if that means distorting reality.  We distort reality, and it corrupts an accurate view of others and the situation at hand.  We create ideas that are false and rooted in selfishness and manipulation.  What if we switched this?  What if we gave others the same benefit we give ourselves?