It’s time for our weekly installment of the Five Minute Friday blog link-up! Writers from all over the world gather around a single word prompt to freewrite for five minutes flat.
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This week’s writing prompt is: DISAGREE
I’m not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way, society at large seems to have experienced a collective forgetting. Unfortunately we have not forgotten how to disagree . . . if anything, disagreements, divisions, and disunities seem to increase in number and pervasiveness by the day. No, we have not forgotten how to disagree . . . but we have forgotten how to disagree politely. With dignity. Like someone who bears the image of God.
We have forgotten what is possible:
I can disagree with you and still love you.
I can disagree with you and still be friends with you.
I can disagree with you and still speak respectfully to you.
I can disagree with you and still listen to what you have to say.
I can disagree with you and still show you kindness and grace.
I can disagree with you and still see you as one made in the image of God, for that is who you are.
Psalm 133:1 (ESV) says, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” (I quote this verse to my kids often when they’re not getting along.)
Of course the ideal is unity . . . that’s what Jesus prayed for in John 17. But where there is disunity and disagreement, there must still be love.
I’ll leave you with these verses from the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. This passage is often read at weddings, but today let’s use it to check our behavior when we disagree with someone else. Are we disagreeing in love?
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”Â
Amen.
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Join the link-up with your own five-minute freewrite below, then visit your link-up neighbor to read their post and leave an encouraging comment:Â
Feet up. mind in neutral, and tongue in cheek…
It’s better, far, to hold your tongue,
and not dare disagree
when you choose to ride among
people just like me,
for we don’t hold with other views,
tolerance just ain’t our thing,
and this might be helpful news,
that you’d better bring
a six-pack when you come along,
and bring a few to share,
then just enjoy the Harley song,
but always, please beware…
we really won’t be mean to you,
but if you err, duct tape’ll do.
Amen. Yes, indeed Kate. Blessings.
Love is treating others with honor & respect regardless of our differences.
This is so good.
Thanks for sharing.
Things so often become heated and we forget that disagreement isn’t necessarily a personal rejection. It is, most often, a difference of opinion.