I struggle to give others the benefit of the doubt. I regularly interpret someone’s words or actions in the worst possible way.  I do this to my wife, friends, colleagues, whoever. There are number of reasons for this – inability to trust people and God, cynicism, self-protection. I’m sure I missing a few but you get the point.

I am not alone in my struggle. Beginning with Adam and Eve, humans have always struggled to give God and each other the benefit of the doubt. For the purposes of this post, I don’t want to consider why we struggle but rather the consequences of not giving the benefit of the doubt, and then pave a way for a better course.

Consequences

Not giving the benefit of doubt results in interpersonal conflict and isolation. When I first got married, my wife and I read a book entitled Fighting for Your Marriage. Though the book is about communication in marriage, its principles are applicable for all our relationships. I remember two things from the book.  First, speaking gently to others is life giving. Second, not giving the benefit of the doubt leads to conflict. Doing so assigns a negative meaning to someone’s words and actions that almost requires confrontation.

In addition, when we don’t give the benefit of the doubt we pave the way to relational isolation. No longer are we a team working through an issue but two individuals attacking each other. When this happens, we sink deeper into our own world, convinced by the narrative: “I am alone and this person (and everyone else) is against me.”

A Better Way

I think the key to giving the benefit of the doubt is found in 1 Corinthians: “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  When Paul says, “Love believes all things,” I think he is saying that to love is to “trust and believe as opposed to mistrust and misbelieve”.  Another way to say it, “love doesn’t let us become cynical and skeptical. Instead, love never ceases to have faith as it never loses hope” (Thanks Scot McKnight).

The million-dollar question is this: What does believing all things look like in relationship? Though this will not be exhaustive, I want to give 4 suggestions.

Go with what you know. I often struggle to give the benefit of the doubt when I am contemplating what was said in conversation, how they said it, what I know about that person, etc. It is in these internal conversations that I take what was said and add a negative twist or even add new thoughts altogether. “Believing all things” means that when we process through these interactions, we lean heavily on what we know to be true and work not to assign motivation or extra meaning. In fact, I think sometimes stopping the internal conversation is a very helpful thing to do.

When in question, lean toward grace. Often, if not most times, it is impossible to go with what we know because we are not sure how to interpret what was said or done. In such situations, we can usually interpret words or actions in a few different ways. Struggling to give the benefit of the doubt is accepting a negative interpretation as true whereas believing all things translates in either accepting a positive interpretation or concluding you just don’t know what was meant.

Ask for clarification. I have found that asking clarifying questions really helps. If something is unclear or comes across as hurtful, I simply ask, “What do you mean?” Nine out of ten times the way I initially interpret something was not what the other person meant.

Preach the Gospel to yourself. Not believing all things is a Gospel issue. In my own reflection, I have found my struggle to be directly tied to a desire to protect myself from criticism and a feeling of inadequacy. This is ironic because when we don’t give the benefit of the doubt we interpret what was said in the most critical way, resulting in feeling inadequate.

The Gospel changes us into people who don’t need to protect ourselves. Believing that Jesus knows that we are flawed and inadequate and yet still forgives and accepts us changes everything. We don’t need to protect ourselves from criticism; in fact, we should expect it because we already know we are sinful and broken and have all sorts of blind spots.

Preaching this Gospel to yourself will bring these Gospel realities deeper into your mind and heart, so that your instinct becomes, more and more, to believe all things.