Respect

I realize I haven’t written anything in a while. As mentioned in my previous post, my life has been turned upside down. Things are still taking shape, but I have grounded myself even deeper in the Lord, which has helped greatly during these changes of location and relationship.

I will elaborate more on the changes in the near future, but today I wanted to write a note about respect. There is a common saying, “respect is earned, not given.” Let’s dissect that for a moment.

If something is earned, before it can be given out, some sort of action or actions must precede the giving of that something. In other words, it’s condition based and therefore can be taken away if the conditions of someone’s subjectivity of what earns their respect are no longer met.

God calls us to love. Inherent in love, is respect. Even in the face of adversity and trials. It’s not based on conditions. It’s freely given, even to those putting us down and talking bad about us behind our backs. The saying should say, “respect is given, not earned.”

I’ve found myself many times acting on the version that says respect is earned. I have seen it in my actions toward other people, even those I “love.” It has taken great intentionality on my part to retrain my mind and root out the lie I believed about when to give respect.