When you cannot understand the heart of one that has harmed you and now is turned against you, remember the proverb, “a lying tongue hates those who are crushed by it” (Proverbs 26:28a). Do not hold their hate against yourself. Forgive them and be free from the condemnation. Remember to love those that hate you and to pray for those that use you. Bless those who curse, bless do not curse.
The presentation of a man is like the raging water that finds the sea and is lost in it. As a man stands before himself, he thinks himself to be a great force that races towards a great reward. As one walks into life, it is as when the river finds the sea and becomes part of it. The river forgets itself. Is it to say that the whole has more value than what makes the whole? Can you dump wastewater into the sea and overtime the sea not be harmed by it? Then doesn’t the quality of the parts help define the quality of the whole?
The presentation of a man is like one that wanders alone seeking all kinds of mystic understanding. Everything the man finds has no value. When the man enters into a city and finds others seeking and shares with them and they with him, he finds value. The understanding is not one of mystery, but one of being to each other. A sea is made of drops of rain that formed into rivers and flowed into the sea. Great is not something that happens to someone or comes to someone, but is of the things that go forth. The journey is sometimes its own reward.
The presentation of a man is like a fire burning in a pot. As long as fuel is put into the pot, it will burn. But when the tender of the fire leaves the task, it will burn out. We have no power within us that will keep us without the hand of the tender. Our power comes from outside of us even as it burns within. Is the power ours to use as we wish or does it belong to the tender? Is not even the freedom to use the power a gift from the One that provides the fuel?
The presentation of a man is like a candle burning in an empty room. As long as the candle is alone in the room, its true value is not known. The candle has little need of its own light. But when the room is occupied, the light is given a reason for being. The labor of the candle has value. It is no more or less work for the candle but the work has been given a purpose. Is not the love of one like a candle that cannot serve an empty room?
The presentation of a man is like a cook that prepares a meal, thinking the whole time of the one that will sit to eat. The labor is done while the other is off doing what life requires. No one sees the tasks or smells the preparation. The acts of love that go into the meal are put into dishes and arranged on a table. When the meal is consumed, the one weary from the day does not always see the real meal that was placed in front of them. The true feast goes unnoticed. Is the joy for the cook not the preparation? And the joy of the weary, was it not the tasks of their day? Had not the weary tended spent the day thinking of the things that their labor would bring? And was the empty stomach of the weary not a blessing to the cook’s labor?
The presentation of a man is like writing in a room alone. When does the passion become labor? At the moment the paper is finished and the writer begins to fret at the thought that somewhere someone will read. The words are now waiting for the interpretation of those that have not walked the same path as the author. The acts of writing will no longer be understood for what went into them, but for what will be taken from them. The heart that went into the words cannot be put into a reading. Then, how can the act of writing be judged? The reader can only judge the act of reading.
It can never be who we are to ourselves that is our value, or we have no value or an inflated value. We cannot be what we see of our self only; to be we are also what we are to everyone else. We must be to those that are for us, but all the more for those that have a lying tongue against us. If we are only for those that are for us, what blessings do we share? Our value is in unbiased grace, the presentation of a man.