First of all, I want to talk about really, you know, the sense of agreeing and disagreeing because we live in a world right now. And as you know there’s a lot of disagreement happening on a whole lot of different topics, major topics, important topics, all of these things, whether it’s controversial, things like pro-life pro-choice issues, whether it’s how we’re handling, COVID wear a mask, not wearing masks to even small things that happen in our day-to-day lives. You know, disagreements with coworkers or family members, friends, what are we having for dinner? Where should we go out to eat little things right now, I’m in the middle of a pretty major construction project in our kitchen. And there’s been a lot of decisions that my husband and I have had to make. And we haven’t always agreed on everything, but I do have to say that this what I’m about to teach you I’ve been practicing and using in my own life and it has been so incredibly powerful.

So what I want to do is I want to start at, start out talking about why we love, like, why we love it when we agree with people. I think we, we love agreeing with people and we are, we don’t generally like disagreeing. What I mean by that is when we disagree, you know, like a lot of times people see disagreeing with someone as conflict as divisiveness, things like that. So we tend to kind of dread those encounters. And then obviously we’re drawn to those moments when we agree with people, whether it’s agreeing about an opinion, maybe there’s something that we like, and then somebody else likes the same thing. So we have this agreement on what we like, or we have agreements on our values or our beliefs, or on things that are important to us. And I want to submit to you an idea that I’ve really been thinking about a lot lately as to why we like it.

How, why it feels good to agree with people and why it does it feel good to disagree. And I think at the heart of this is the idea of connection. So what, what I mean by this is we like agree with people because when we agree with people, we experienced a connection with them. So, and it can be as little as simple things for, for example, I was in my class with my students a couple of weeks ago, and my seniors, they had a senior out to lunch day where they got to go out, go leave campus and go off, off campus for lunch. And I was asking them, where are you guys going to go today for lunch? And we were talking and then some of them said, Hey, we’re going to Cafe Rio. And where I live, we have this chain restaurant called Cafe Rio, and it’s one of my favorite places.

And so we started talking about it and we were like, Oh, I love cCfe Rio. And they were like, I love Cafe Rio too. And then I said something like, Oh my gosh, their sweet pork is just like amazing. I dream about it. It’s so good. And they were a couple of them in the class were like, Oh my gosh, I know there’s sweet pork. I just love it. And here we are, we’re having this like powerful conversation around Cafe Rio, sweet pork. And we’re all agreeing about how amazing it is and how, you know, the tortillas are so fresh and all of this. And all of a sudden when you’re agreeing about these things, you feel a connection with people, people and is so powerful. Even if it’s something as minor as this, your opinion on something that you love to taste. And I remember we were having this conversation in the class and then one person, one of my students just chimed in and he said, I can’t stand Cafe Rio.

I did not like Cafe Rio. And I definitely do not like the sweet pork. And it was like, it was so funny because half of the classroom like that, you could like hear this gasp. Like, how can you not like it? We were all kind of giving him a hard time about it. And it was just funny, but it’s even funny. Like when, when someone disagrees with you on an opinion, even about food, you kind of feel this disconnect from this person. And I just find it fascinating if that happens to us on little minor things, like what restaurant you like or what type of foods you like, imagine how much it is when it comes to really big and important topics. And so what I want to bring to our group tension today is that we don’t, we’re not really longing to have people agree with us on things we maybe think we do, but what we’re really for at the root of our challenges with disagreements and stuff like that, isn’t so much the actual disagreeing, it’s the lack of connection or the fear of disconnection that happens when we get into an argument or when we disagree with someone or there’s a conflict.

And obviously the bigger, the conflict, the bigger, the argument, the bigger the disagreement, oftentimes it feels like there’s the bigger disconnect from another human being. And that is where I believe the real tension comes in. And I want to bring this to all of our attention because this is where I think the secret to the art of disagreeing comes in. And it’s really important for us to understand that at the core of our relationships, at the core of agreeing or disagreeing with someone or entering into conflict or avoiding conflict, is that the core of it is a desire for connection. And it’s easy, obviously when we agree on things, it’s very simple to have connection. As I mentioned with the Cafe Rio, you know, example, but what I want to share in this podcast is that it’s actually possible, even as we enter into disagreement, even when we disagree majorly, when there’s a profound level of, you know, maybe we have polar opposite viewpoints or we’re on the total like opposite spectrum of where we stand on an issue.

I want to share how we can experience, even in the midst of disagreement, how we can still have connection, experience, connection, and even sometimes experience a deeper level of connection than with people we actually agree with. Now stay with me because I think this is incredibly powerful. And I’ve started putting this into practice in my own life in the last few years. And I’ve, I’ve tested this, I’ve tried this out, I’ve experimented with it, and it is crazy, crazy powerful. Now I’m going to share with you an example to kind of bring all of this to the surface for you. This happened about five years ago, I was my son, it was a Friday evening and he was 11. Joshua was 11 at the time. And as always, he was starting to develop a sore throat. He came home from school and he said, mom, I’m just getting a sore throat.

And you know how it is as a parent is like, that always happens on a Friday night when you can’t take your kid to the pediatrician, the office is closed. So I’m like, Oh, of course. And we’re heading into the weekend. And so I ran him down the street to our kind of doc in the box here in Boise, we have a model like every corner practically they’re called primary health. Just kind of walk in inpatient little doc in the boxes. So we walked into our primary health and went in and then, you know, went to the, you signed in whatever. And then they took us back into our room to wait for the doctor to come see him. And as we were sitting in the room, just kind of small talking, my son Joshua says to me, Hey mom, a lot of parents bring their kids here to primary health, right. When they’re sick. And I said, yeah, just like, you know, the many times that we’ve brought you guys here. And I said, why? And he said, well, I don’t understand why a doctor’s office that, especially where kids come, that they would put a mean scary monster face on the side, know the building.

It was like, what, what are you talking about there? Scary monster face on the side of the building. They said, yeah, mom, in the logo of primary health, it’s just a big, scary monster face. And I looked at him and I said, Joshua, what are you talking about? And I said, the logo for primary health is a cross. I said, it’s, it’s a medical cross just to kind of looks like a plus sign, but it’s, it’s more, it’s the medical cross. And he said, no, mom, it’s not, it’s scary monster. And he, he said, look up on the wall in the room that we were in was the logo on the wall and I’m looking at it and I’m still, yeah, I’m totally confused. And I’m thinking, is he messing with me? What is he talking about? And I said, Joshua, that is not a scary monster face.

That is a cross. How, how do you see a scary monster base? So we kind of started getting into an argument about this and that total disagreement. I’m like, it’s a cross. And he’s like, it’s a scary monster face. And he’s like, look at it. You know? And I’m like seriously thinking he’s totally trained to rile me up or he’s messy with me. But then I could tell that he was serious. Yes. And he said, mom, all of us kids, it’s all like all of his siblings. They’re like, we always talk about it. Every time we drive by the building where I always like, why would they put a scary monster face up there? And I’m thinking to myself, okay, he’s serious. Somehow when he’s looking at this logo, he sees a scary monster face. And so, so instantly I was fascinated. I’m like, okay, I don’t see it.

All I see is a cross. But you to explain to me what you’re seeing and he’s like, see, look at, these are the eyes and this is a head. I couldn’t see it at all the mouth, any of it. And so what did I do? I kept asking him questions. I’m like walk up to a point to it. Show me the eyes. And he’s like, mom, look, you got to do this. Look at the eyes. And then he, I noticed he was tilting his head to the left. And so I literally like got down to his level, tilted my head to the left. And I said, pointed out, show me everything. Show me how you see the scary monster face. And he goes, he’s a, here it is. And I’m like tilting my head and I’m looking at it. And he’s like the eyes, these are red eyes.

And then the red mouth. And it looks like a kind of a scary jack-o-lantern face. And instantly when he said that, am I tilted my head? And I looked at it from his angle. I saw it there. It was a scary monster face right there. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I see it. This was the dill in the logo. The cross is clear. And then the shadow of the cross actually makes is what makes the cross look like across. But the shadow, when you tilt your head to the side, looks like a kind of a scary jack-o-lantern face. And it was crazy. Like, I couldn’t see it at all until I got to his angle and looked at it from his perspective and asked him a bunch of questions and really try to see what he was seeing with a fascination. Not with it, not in a, in a sense of trying to argue with him, but really like, show me what you see.

I want to see what you see. And then all of a sudden I saw it and this is the funny thing. Now I see it all. Like whenever I look at it, I see it. So it’s very obvious to me, but it was then at that point that I was, once I was able to see the scary face, then I was able to really help him see the cross. And I was like, okay, Joshua, basically what you’re seeing in this scary face, this is just the outline of the cross. Now tilt your head to the, you know, tilt your head the other way. And then, then I was able to really point out the cross. And then he was able to see the cross. Now I know that this might not seem like a big deal, but this has a profound effect on me. I remember literally thinking about this for months, because then it was from there that he was able to go home and we were talking about it and he was, he pulled it up on the computer and he was showing his siblings.

And he’s like, you guys, it’s not as scary monster face is actually a cross. He was able to show them the cross. And all of a sudden my kids were able to see the cross. Now this is the profound thing. Obviously it’s medical facility. Like I know that the person who designed the logo totally intended for that to be a cross, but I think it’s fascinating how children tend to see. And my kids, aren’t the only ones I’ve taught. Like my, my nephews, they see a scary monster face. I think probably most of the kids in town probably see a scary monster face when they look at this logo. And the reality is that even though it’s intended to be across so often what we experience is what we see and what we see comes from our perceptions and our perceptions totally shape how we view things.

It is so incredibly fascinating. And so this to me is at the heart of what I want to talk about today. Now with my son, Joshua, that was a moment of like him and I, we could have just gone back and forth and I could have just been like, no, it’s a cross. And he could have been like, no, it’s a scary monster. We could have just gone back and forth. And I could have been like, no, it’s a cross. Clearly it’s a cross. This is a medical place. Obviously it’s across and we can adjust disagreed. And we would’ve had a disconnection in this encounter. And it would have been just really frustrating. I think if, if that’s how it ended. But what ended up happening was was that I was able to really listen to him. I was able to ask him questions.

I was able to try to see it from his perspective. And then I saw it. And once I was able to see it, it didn’t change my opinion. I didn’t, I still knew that it was a cross. And that’s still what I see when I look at it, but now I can actually also see a scary monster vase. The fact is though, after this encounter, after I was able to see it from his perspective, then I was able to show him my perspective. And in this encounter, we had a deeper connection because now it wasn’t like I was convincing him that I was right or that he was wrong. It wasn’t about him convincing me that I was wrong. And he was right. The deeper connection happened when we were all of a sudden able to see it from each other’s perspectives. And this is what is so powerful.

It’s powerful when it comes to small minor things. And it’s incredibly powerful when it comes to the major moments of disagreement in our lives. This is what I want to teach you today is the art of disagreeing in a way that leads us to deeper connection. So let’s dive into this. This is super simple stuff, but super powerful, four simple steps, that’s it. So let’s get to this step. Number one for the art of disagreeing. What I want to say about this is whenever you find yourself going into a situation where you feel like you might, there might be a disagreement, or you, you know, that you’re going to be talking to someone whose opinion is strongly different from yours, or maybe you don’t know it’s going to come up, but something does come up and you find yourself in an argument or in a moment of conflict, one of the best things we can do.

And it’s, it’s a little bit hard. You have to practice this because in the moment, our first inclination is to become defensive. And we want to prove that we’re right and we want to win an argument. Or sometimes if you’re like me, I just want to avoid conflict altogether. So I tend to retreat and I’ll just kind of let someone just, you know, I just kind of step back. And so I won’t even defend myself at all. Just kind of go into either a quiet place or I’ll walk away or, or whatever. And I actually don’t think that’s the best approach either. So what I want to say is this in the moment where you feel like there’s, there’s a possibility for disagreement or this tension or conflict or an argument, I want you to just have this brief moment and ask yourself, what do I want the end result to be?

This is what I do. Like what, what do I really want here? Do I want to win an argument? Do I want to convince someone that they’re wrong and I’m right? Or do I want to have a connection with a person? Do I want to enter into a conversation where there’s the potential for me to be able to see something from their perspective or to engage with them in a powerful, meaningful way that lends itself to connection and actually even potentially strengthens our relationship? And at this point where I am in my life, I have come to this place where I believe that that is what I want more than winning an argument is that I want to enter into a deeper sense of connection with the people that I encounter every day. And I want to submit to all of us that I actually believe that as Christians, as Catholics, that this is ultimately what, what Christ is calling us to.

And I’m going to come back in a circle back to this at the end, and kind of give you an example from scripture as to why I believe this. And, and yet I can also tell you from my past experiences of being in a disagreement with someone where my end goal was to win an argument, or to try to convince someone that, that I was right, or that they needed to change, or they needed to change their views or their opinions or their viewpoint and see things the way I see them and agree with me. What I can tell you is most of the time, probably really all the time. I can’t really think of a time that I truly just been able to win an argument and convince somebody that I was right and that they were wrong. It almost always, but like if I was committed to that being the end goal, what actually ended up happening was the relationship was hurt, or even the relationship in some ways was ruined by this.

And we see it all the time. We see so many of our relationships damaged or hurt because we feel that when we enter into a disagreement with someone that we have to win and they’re committed to the same thing that they’re like committed to, like they have to win. And so when the end result, when the end goal is trying to get someone to change, it rarely ever happens. And it usually ends with disconnection and the relationship, and some sort of, you know, breaking the good breakdown of the relationship. And I just come to a place where that’s not what I want anymore. To me, the relationships are more important. So anyways, number one, figure out and commit to your end goal. And like I mentioned, keep in mind that that, that end goal should most likely be a deeper sense of connection. Number two, the second tip to the art of disagreeing is to know, like at the onset, if you’re in, if you’re going into it to a disagreement or an argument or something like that, to actually know what you believe and why I know that this sounds kind of funny because we just assume that we know what we believe in Y but really like, make sure if you feel passionate or strongly about something, don’t just know what you believe, but know why you believe that.

And at least be able to articulate it well to yourself. This helps whenever we get into a disagreement with someone, because at least we know what we believe in why. And we feel grounded in that we feel, you know, strong in our beliefs. We still feel strong in our convictions. And it’s not that we want to know, know the answers to all of this, because again, that we’re trying to win an argument, but it just helps us to know where we stand. Because if we feel secure in what we know and believe, then we already know that, like, we don’t have to become defensive about it. We can just know what we believe and why, and feel secure in that. And so there’s really no point in arguing about it because we already know what we believe. And we know that that’s not necessarily going to change and we don’t have to worry about somebody saying something, something to us.

And all of a sudden we feel insecure about it. So that’s my second step. Super simple. It’s not even something that you really have to think about. Just kind of have a sense, like, yeah, I know what I believe in why the third tip, I believe is the most important aspect in all of this. And it is to enter into this conversation, enter into this dis disagreement, asking questions. So at this point, the whole goal becomes, I want to know what you believe. I want to understand what you believe. Not from a sense of like, I want you to convince me why I’m wrong. No, no, no. That’s not at all. It’s kind of like my situation with Joshua. I was like, I see things completely differently from you, but I want to see your perspective. I want to know what you believe. I want to know why you believe it.

I want you to show me. I want to understand you. I want to listen. I want to ask questions. I want to engage. I want to know why you feel this way. Like, is there something from your past that makes you feel so strongly about this? Isn’t how you were raised. Did you have past experiences that have shaped your viewpoints on this? Like really trying to truly understand where that person is coming from, what they believe, how they feel all of that. And you’re not doing that from a place of where you’re trying to change your thoughts or your views, but really trying to see things from their perspective, trying to get almost like, like you want to like get into their mind and like really be able to see what they believe. And this, my friends, this is where that deep sense of connection comes in because we live in a world where so often we just want to pass over people.

We just, we want to, like, we don’t really take time to really get to know someone and understand where they’re coming from. And especially if it’s somebody that we know we disagree with, or we don’t share similar values with or ideas with, we just want to avoid them. We want to just avoid any possibility of conflict. But this is like, it’s like leaning in and saying, I want to see you. I want to know you. I want to understand you better. And when you, you can get to a point just like with Joshua, where I was like, okay, okay, show me what you see. I want to see what you see. Then there’s something that’s really powerful. That happens when you can actually get to that. The point and people really, I feel like when you do this, when you ask these types of questions, people feel like you care about them.

And it doesn’t mean you have to agree with them. It just means like, I actually care about you. I see you, I believe your life. And I believe that your perspectives matter. And I want to hear them. And then what also happens, which is magical is most of the time. So actually before I even get to that point, I just want to say this, keep asking questions, keep asking questions, keep asking questions until you can reiterate back to the person, what you think they think you’re telling like that. You’re, they’re telling you. So you want to just, you want to keep asking questions, then you can say like, now, do you mean this is this what this means? When you see it this way, you want to get to a place of, again, you don’t have to change your viewpoints. You don’t have to change your beliefs, but you can just get to a place where you’re like, okay, I can see what you are telling me.

I can understand. And then usually what happens, and this is really leads to the fourth step is mostly most the time when you can get to this point where you can see another person’s perspective. It just, all of a sudden, it just so many walls come down and it actually builds … There is a sense of connection. There’s a sense of, of trust that is built. And then what happened is they actually want to ask you questions. They want to, you know, ask what you think. And then you can kind of enter into a dialogue. Very similar to like with Joshua, where I was like, okay, I actually can see the scary monster now. Now can I show you from what I, now that I see the scary monster. Now I can show you that. Now this is, you know, then you can have meaningful conversations. And a lot of time, a lot of times in a disagreement, it’s getting to this point that you actually can find some middle ground. Maybe you’re not going to convince each other, like one, person’s not going to completely go over to the other person and be like, Oh yeah, I completely agree with you now. But this is where you find those middle points. You can find those bridge points or points of you know, finding a couple things

In common that you do agree on within, you know, the bigger context. And again, that leads to more connection, but it also leads to deeper relationship at least to trust, at least to listening, it leads to a sense of, Hey, we might disagree on this, but there are some things that we do agree on. There are some things that we hold in common and there is where a deeper connection happens and the relationship is strengthened and there’s respect for each other. And oftentimes it just leads to more and more meaningful discussions. Now, obviously there’s all sorts of different levels of disagreements. I mean, you can have something as simple as disagreeing with your husband about what you’re going to make for dinner. And obviously, you know, you don’t have to go to great lengths of discussing all of this, but sometimes even in a situation like this, asking a couple of questions can actually improve the situation significantly.

And then you have bigger issues and more important issues that maybe you disagree on. And that’s really where this process is incredibly helpful. So for my husband and I recently, we’re in the process of a remodel for a kitchen. And for years, this has been something that I’ve been dreaming about and have all these Pinterest boards and all these ideas of what kind of countertops and backsplash and all of that. And here we are in the middle of it. And we’re trying to figure out all these things colors, and you know, how, what colors do we paint our cabinets? And I have pretty strong opinions on this and have been dreaming about this for a really long time. And yet my husband also like he has opinions on this. And so there’s been some times during this process where we’ve disagreed on certain things. And so I’ve gone into this process, like in the past with my husband and I, with stuff like this, we would have probably ran into some pretty heated arguments, but the deal that’s been different this time is that I’ve been using this approach a lot.

And I entered into this kitchen remodel, knowing that I really wanted to have a really powerful experience. I wanted to do this for so many years that now it’s almost, I just feel like incredibly blessed to have this opportunity and I’m, I want to enjoy it. I want to be excited about it. I don’t want to be stressed out. I don’t want to be, you know, arguing and things like that and ruin this experience of having the blessing of getting to do this. And so I’ve been really aware of these moments. And so there’s been a number of times that we’ve just disagreed on choices for things, whether it was the choice for the lighting of the, the lights above the Island or what color the cabinets are, what color, the back, splash, all of those things. And what’s been really cool is every time we’ve come to a place of disagreement and just getting defensive as to like, why can’t you just pick what I want to pick?

I really entered into it with wanting to see things from his perspective. I had this idea of wanting to put a built-in double oven in the kitchen. It’s something that I’ve wanted for years. And I felt really strongly about that. And then we kind of ran into some issues and we were trying to figure it out. And then he, he disagreed with me. He’s like, I don’t think we should do this. And instead of getting defensive and thinking, gosh, like I’ve wanted this for so long, why won’t he give into this? I started asking him questions and I just became curious, like, why do you think this is not the best idea? And, and then, you know, I really listened to him and I kept asking him questions and they wanted to really see things from his perspective. And all of a sudden he’s like, well, if we do this, I feel like we’re going to lose some counter space.

We’re gonna have to take out all these cabinets. And we use these cabinets and he starts sharing with me all of his concerns about doing this and, and is it really going to be that beneficial? And he starts bringing up all these points and all of a sudden I was listening to him and I was seeing it from his perspective. And I actually had this moment of realization where I was like, Oh my goodness. I actually think, I think he’s right. I, I actually, you could see it from his perspective. And I thought to myself, maybe, maybe he, he is right. Maybe we are, if we go ahead and do this, maybe am I going to regret down the road that we are losing this counter space in cabinets and just in talking it through. And then, and then he asked me, he’s like, well, tell me what you want it so badly.

And then we started talking about that. And then the powerful thing was, was that we, at the end of the discussion, we came to this point where I, I literally looked at him and I said, I think I agree with you. And something that I’ve wanted for years, I actually just through talking it through and seeing his perspective and seeing it from a different way actually helped me realize that maybe this isn’t the best idea. And so we, several, one of the things, and then there was some things that we disagreed on when it came to other things. And I listened to him and I asked him questions, and then he asked me questions, and then he kind of realized, okay, I actually see your perspective. Why don’t we, why don’t we go with that? And so this whole time, this whole experience of remodeling our kitchen has been a powerful experience of asking each other questions, listening, listening to our perspectives and sharing and compromising the whole way.

And what have we ended up doing? Like it has been such a powerful experience. I have felt closer to my husband in the last few weeks in the, just a really powerful way. Then, then I weigh more than I thought I was going to during this process, we haven’t gotten to a single point. Yeah. We’ve had to make a lot of decisions that we’ve disagreed on, but we’ve talked through it. We’ve listened to each other. We’ve respected each other. And the end result is that we’re going to have a beautiful kitchen that we both absolutely love and a beautiful kitchen where we’ve made, made this memory of coming together and doing this and doing it in a way that’s been really enjoyable and really powerful. And I, I love that this process of understanding that there are things that are more important than just having someone always agree with you, listening, asking questions, diving deeper, and really wanting to see the other person and know what they’re thinking.

All of it is deeply powerful. And I actually think in a lot of ways, very emotionally intimate. And again, I think this is what Christ is calling us to. Now. I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast episode, that I wanted to wrap it up with a scripture story. And the one that just keeps coming to mind about all of this is the story of Zaccheus.  And as we know, Zaccheus was a tax collector and he was deeply despised and hated. And rightly so, because as we know the tax collectors, in that time, they took advantage of people. They, they would ask for more money than was necessary for taxes, and then they would take it and keep it for themselves. And so truly they were living very sinful lives in this role of power or, and so as we know, Jesus is walking through the town.

There’s all these crowds crowding around Jesus and Zaccheus and his curiosity and, and all of that. He’s a, a shorter man. He climbs a Sycamore tree because he wants to get a glimpse of Jesus. He wants to see Jesus and Jesus turns around. He sees a case up in the tree and he walks over to him and he says, it’s Zaccheus. He calls them by name. He says, come down from that tree. And in this moment, Jesus could have literally said to him in front of everyone, Zaccheus, you’re a sinner. You are doing these bad. You need to turn your life around. You need to stop doing that, give your money back change your life. But that’s not what Jesus did. What did he do? He said to him, Zaccheus, I want to come to your house and I want to eat with you.

That was it. Jesus went to Zaccheus and encountered him. He purposely and wanted to enter into a relationship with him. He wanted a connection with Zaccheus. And as we know what happened instantly, Zaccheus was transformed in this moment. He was transformed by this encounter with Christ and he was convicted by it. He was convicted by this moment, this encounter with, with our Lord and instantly, he had a conversion and instantly he himself saw his ways and said, I’m going to give off, you know, give all the money, like half of it back, and I’m going to make amends and I’m gonna, I’m gonna do the right thing. He had, he was changed by this encounter. And I think this is a powerful witness to all of us, that, that the encounter, that the connection is always more powerful. Then just pointing out how someone is wrong.

Or if somebody is living a life that is wrong and just calling them out on it. So this is one of those opportunities for us to go, wow, like, okay, here I am. Like, how do we encounter Christ? Now we know that we encounter Christ through the sacraments. We encounter Christ in his church and scripture and prayer, but we also encounter Christ in one another. And this is really where, where I want to end this every Sunday, single day, when we wake up in the morning and we’d go throughout our day, we have these constant encounters with other people. And the question is, is like when we encounter people, do we want them to have an encounter with Christ within us? Like, do we want you show people Christ love? And it’s easy. See, to show Christ’s love with people that we just agree with or the people that we have.

A lot of things in common with. It’s oftentimes really hard to show Christ, love to people that we strongly disagree with, or whose views are different than ours. But I believe this, this is what, what Christ is calling us to. He’s calling us to enter into these moments of encounter these moments of connection, relationship with people and show them his love to listen, to see them, to ask questions, to go deeper in our relationship. And also we’re called to recognize Christ in them as well. And these types of things can happen in real life. Really significant ways. When we take the time to engage people, people in truly meaningful conversations. It’s so life-giving, it can be life-changing. And in, in an ultimate way, we can really help lead people closer to Christ. One of my favorite quotes, I don’t know who said this quote, I don’t know who to give credit to this, but I think about it so often.

And it’s this people will not always remember you say, and people will not always remember what you do, but I’ll never forget the way you made them feel. And I think about that so often in my life and my encounters with people. And I think in even in moments of disagreement, it’s not always what we say and oftentimes not even what we do, but it’s how do we make people feel? And so my sisters in Christ, I’m going to leave it right there. And I hope this podcast episode has been helpful in some way. And I truly hope that even in the midst disagreement, we can possibly use these strategies to grow closer to one another. And finally, I just want to say this, first of all, thank you so much for listening to our podcast made for greatness and subscribing to it. We are incredibly grateful for, for our listeners and as we’re building up this podcast she’s please know that we are praying for you and we are incredibly grateful, but I also want to say this, if you’ve been impacted at all by this podcast, by maybe something I’ve said or something Sterling’s shared, or if these podcasts episodes are meaningful to you in your life in any way, I have two requests.

One, if you would mind just taking 30 seconds to going to like whatever platform you are listening to this podcast on to just go and leave a review two and a radio and a review, even if it’s just one sentence that would be so helpful as we’re trying to build up this podcast, like those ratings and those reviews really do have a big impact. So if you wouldn’t mind just taking a second to do that we sure would appreciate it. And then also if you feel that this content would be beneficial for anybody, you know, friends, family sisters, mothers, cousins, coworkers if you’d be willing to share it and pass that on and help us as we try to, to grow our listenership, we would also greatly appreciate that as well. And finally, my friends, I hope you have a blessing week and remember mama, you are made for greatness.