I was helping to look for a welding helmet the other day, and we got into a small discussion of how auto darkening helmets are better. That opinion was one sided, however, as I have only ever used helmets that you manually moved up and down. I have never used an auto darkening helmet. I don’t dispute they are better, they would seem to be, but I know nothing but flip helmets. As such, and since that is what I have access to, I won’t use an auto darkening helmet.<\/p>\n

In the days following that discussion, I started wondering about how that attitude is applied in other aspects of life. It is obvious in brands. In rural areas, you often hear of people using one brand of tractor because their family has always used that brand. But, it is not always as benign as choosing one type of equipment over another.<\/p>\n

There are people that use violence, anger, belittling, and a host of other wrong things because that is what they know from their history. Parents, classmates, friends, co-workers, they all have some influence on our personality. They aren’t going to make us mean or nice, but our reactions to them will. Here is where I wandered a little off from the original discussion.<\/p>\n

If you are around someone who is a jerk seemingly all the time, you become faced with a decision: will you reciprocate, or will you pay them back with kindness? We often go with the first option, but it is wrong. Jesus had that same choice, yet He was kind when threatened. The people who accused Him of all sorts of wrongdoing were still covered by one of His last requests. Jesus asked God to forgive them (that covers a broad multitude of people) because they didn’t know what they were doing. Those people who act like jerks may fall into that category. They might be waiting for you to show them a better way. How are you going to do that if you act like a bigger jerk to them?<\/p>\n

There are two quotes that come to mind here. One is, if a dove hangs with crows, its feathers remain white while its heart grows black. You do have to watch how you react to others. The other quote is, remember, a kite rises against the wind, not with it. You can rise above adversity, and show people that they can do better, too.<\/p>\n

Now, don’t feel discouraged if you are nice to mean people, and they don’t change. You are not responsible for changing them, you can’t do it anyway. God will take care of that end. You are to be nice and love them. There will be times that niceness has to be replaced with firmness, but the love must still be there.<\/p>\n

What kind of welding helmet, tractor, car, shells and cheese, or anything like that you use does not really matter. God isn’t going to turn you away because you used a red tractor and not a green one. He wants to see you love one another. Are you going to do that? A word of warning that applies to me, as well, running from the problem won’t fix it. That, and two jerks don’t make for good relationships.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was helping to look for a welding helmet the other day, and we got into a small discussion of how auto darkening helmets are better. That opinion was one sided, however, as I have only ever used helmets that you manually moved up and down. I have never used an auto darkening helmet. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotional"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1403,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1402\/revisions\/1403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grfxbox.com\/thb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}