Have you considered.......?

Today I subbed in band. Just before I left the high school the power went out, and as I was stalling my departure to the junior high I decided to wait for a minute, or sixty, to see what would happen. Because if the high school got out I was going to force, er, ask Emily to come help me at the junior high. I sat in the main office so I got a front row seat to the whole experience. First of all, so many students came in wanting to know what was going ON!? Would school get out? What caused it? How long did the power have to be out to call school out? What about the blood drive in the gym? Keep in mind this was within mere minutes of the power going out. There was no way to know those answers yet. In addition there was a principals meeting at the district office so our secretary had to notify them before anything could be done. Eventually an electrician was called in and power was restored. What was so fascinating to me was watching people come in and offer opinions about getting out, about finding the problem, how to fix it, what the students should do and so on. All of this when they had no idea what was being discussed and done by the few who knew what to do, who to call.
And then I wondered. How often do I do this? Do we all do this? Make snap judgements, or believe we know better than others about a situation that we probably know little or nothing about? Do we ever consider that we just don't know? And maybe we should trust that sometimes there are people who know better than us. Maybe the angry, disrespectful kid is just looking for a bit of acceptance. That a parent who seems to be handling THEIR child wrong is really just praying and listening to answers they are receiving. Maybe someone snapped at us because they had a bad day. We just don't know. Maybe the kind and Christian thing to do is to be loving and considerate to those around us. We just don't know
I need to remember this tomorrow as I get to sub in the junior high bands again. And believe me, if you see ME tomorrow afternoon please be loving, because I had a stressful day!