Euodia and Syntyche - Pt 7

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:4-9 ESV).

As the Apostle Paul comes near the end of his encouragement for Luke’s encouragement toward Euodia and Syntyche to reconcile their differences he says they ought to find something—anything—praiseworthy to focus on in their antagonist (v. 8). This is certainly true for us today. If we stew on what our antagonists did wrong, replaying the memories to ourselves and recounting our hurt feelings to others, we are sinning against God, who told us what to think about. Find something true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, or worthy of praise, and set your mind there. Many interactions these days have a kind of bumper-car quality to them. At work, at home, on the telephone, social media, even our email, we sort of bounce off of each other while we exchange information, smile or frown, and move on. How often do we actually take the extra few seconds to get a sense of what's inside other people, especially their good qualities? In fact, because of what scientists call the brain's "negativity bias", we're most likely to notice the bad qualities in others rather than the good ones: the things that worry or annoy us, or make us critical. Unfortunately, if you feel surrounded by lots of bad or at best neutral qualities in others, and only a sprinkling of dimly-sensed good ones, then you naturally feel less supported, less safe, and less inclined to be generous or pursue your dreams. Plus, in a circular way, when another person gets the feeling that you don't really see much that's good in him or her, that person is less likely to take the time to see much that's good in you. It should be any wonder that the apostle encourages us to see the good things in others. It works good in our lives as it conveys good into the lives of others.