I know these three words sound funny when clumped together, but they create a philosophy I try to stick by as best I can. This phrase has helped me hold my tongue in situations where I’ve wanted to let someone flat out have it, it’s caused me to press pause in moments where I wanted to act on pure emotion, and it’s encouraged me to choose kindness when that would NOT have naturally been my first choice. Let me explain.

Have you ever gotten frustrated with a server over their horrible attitude only to have them break down and confess that their grandmother was admitted to the hospital an hour earlier? Have you found yourself in a situation where you gave a co-worker a verbal lashing before they had a chance to explain that they were receiving pressure from someone higher up to push an agenda they didn’t necessarily agree with? Have you refused to talk to a friend or family member who gave you the cold shoulder at a recent gathering, but later came to realize that their spouse had left them a few days prior and they were doing everything in their power just to keep it together long enough to make it through the event?

Maybe you haven’t encountered these exact scenarios, but I bet you can relate to each of them in some way. We’ve all reacted to the obvious ‘what’ of the situation before understanding the not so obvious ‘why.’ Now, I totally get that this doesn’t give anyone an open invitation to act however they’d like whenever they’d like nor does it require anyone to become a human punching bag for people who habitually overstep healthy boundaries. We still need to live with a measure of accountability, but we also need to be prepared to extend a measure of grace.

What I’m suggesting is that we dig a little deeper into the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’ before we decide how best to respond. Sometimes we may find that someone really is as awful as their actions indicate and it’s time to step away from that type of toxicity, but I’m willing to bet this is the exception as opposed to the rule. Most people aren’t transparent by nature. They, instead, default to faking their emotions in order to hide whatever it is they want to keep buried. Often, individuals don’t even realize their actions are off-putting, offensive, or odd. They’re simply in survival mode, and all of their energy is going toward keeping up appearances the best they can while the thing that is eating at them just keeps gnawing away. A gracious reaction, a kind word or an understanding smile may be the very thing that gets someone through their day.

I’d bet each of us has been on the receiving end of this as well. Maybe you’ve been the one in a funk because life unexpectedly slid sideways, the one who got caught dodging someone in the grocery store because you didn’t want them to ask about something you weren’t ready to talk about, or the one who snapped at an innocent bystander for no reason other than the fact that they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when your version of pain finally shoved you over the edge. If you received an ounce of mercy in those moments, you know how much it lowered your guard and restored your faith in humanity.

And let’s not forget the ultimate act of selfless forgiveness that Jesus accomplished on the cross. We, in no form or fashion, deserved that level of grace. We did nothing to earn it and everything to disqualify ourselves from it. Yet our Father loved us too much to let us go. He took our pain, our shame, our hang-ups, and our mess ups, and cast them aside for the sake of our souls. Our small acts of compassion toward others pale in comparison to the level of God’s love toward us, but he still beams with pride as we reflect his heart.

Ephesians 4:32 explains it this way -

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

So let’s do our best to apply the ‘Why Over What’ strategy to our interactions with others and let it uplift our sinking souls when it’s applied to us. If we could achieve this one thing, even a fraction of the time, I sincerely believe our world would become a much brighter place.