| The Glory of the Common Life |
Chapter 8 |
Page 5 |
It is instructive to notice what John did with the doubts which arose in his mind. He did not nurse them, and brood over them. That is the lat thing to do with any doubts of questions. Some people nurse their suspicions of others until they have grown into utterly false beliefs concerning them. Some people nurse their jealousies until they become murderous thoughts and feelings. Some people nurse their misunderstandings of Christ and his way with them until they give up Christ altogether and say they cannot believe on him nor follow him any longer.
The truest thing for you to do, if you have a friend who seems to have been unkind to you, is not to believe the things some whisperer has told you, or your own interpretation of the things you think your friend has done; the only true thing to do is to go right to the friend with the matter which is troubling you. Then you will find, in ninety nine cases in a hundred, that you have only misunderstood him. If today you are judging another, feeling that he is not loyal to you, if he seems to have slighted you or failed in tenderness or kindness to you, almost surely you are misjudging him. Do not nurse your feeling, or let it grow into doubt or suspicion. Do not allow it to influence your relations with your friend, your treatment of him. Keep on loving and believing in him. Go to him and talk it over with him, and you will find that you have only misunderstood him.
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