With a Grain of Salt

No Judgment

I too am human.
Imperfect.
Inclined to sin.
And I cannot judge you for being the same.

There are ten commandments in the Old Testament. And Jesus gave one new commandment in the New Testament that folds every rule, every law, and every expectation into a single, piercing line of truth:

Love God with all your heart, and love your neighbour as you love yourself.

My questions:
How do we follow that commandment in a world where God is forgotten in the noise, and where so few people genuinely love themselves?
How do we love others when we barely understand our own hearts – our wounds, our shadows, our contradictions?

I think this is where humanity becomes both simple and complicated.

The Empty Boat

From as far back as I can remember, I’ve been an empath. When people said or did hurtful things, my instinct wasn’t to judge – it was to understand. I cried at times. I dwelled on their words. I obsessed over the meaning. But even in the hurt, I “saw” them. I “heard” them. Not their behaviour alone, but the unspoken language underneath it – the language of their past: trauma, fear, old wounds, defence mechanisms, and survival instincts formed long before I ever appeared in their story.

Much of that language was one I didn’t fully understand, but I recognised the tone. And so, in my mind, their boat was always empty.

The “Empty Boat Mindset” teaches this:

When someone bumps into you – with their words, their anger, their carelessness, or their silence – it often has nothing to do with you. Their boat is empty. They are navigating stress, memories, triggers, fears, insecurities, and emotional blind spots you may never know about. They aren’t strategising how to hurt you. They aren’t plotting emotional warfare. They are simply doing what they’ve always done to survive whatever moment they’re in.

When you learn to see the empty boat, you realise not everything is personal. You stop reacting to every slight. You stop assuming intention. And more importantly, you begin assuming humanity. You don’t do this to excuse bad behaviour. You do this to protect your peace.

Respect and Imperfection

Imperfect people strut around expecting respect from other imperfect people. Some say, “You must earn respect.” Others insist, “You don’t earn respect – you are respect. Behave accordingly.”

And while everyone argues about respect, the word “decency” bounces around the room unnoticed.

Here’s my imperfect viewpoint:
The one demanding respect is often just as indecent, flawed, reactive, or unreasonable as the one refusing to give it. Respect becomes a badge people want to wear without doing the work that makes it real. We shout for respect, but live in ways that contradict the very thing we’re insisting on.

So let’s pause and ask a very simple, very uncomfortable question:

What does respect even mean to you?
Is it tone?
Is it obedience?
Is it being agreed with?
Is it silence when you’re wrong?
Is it people tiptoeing around your sensitivities?
Is it validation – even when you don’t deserve it?

Or is respect something deeper?
A basic human decency.
A way of speaking.
A way of treating people.
A willingness to pause before harming.
A consciousness of your own flaws before pointing at someone else’s.

Because decency – not ego, not entitlement – is the real foundation of respect. Without decency, “respect” becomes nothing more than a performance. A demand. A one-way street built by someone who thinks their imperfection is holier, tidier, or more justified than yours.

So again...

What does respect truly mean to you?

Always Offended

Why are we so quick to feel offended? Why do the smallest words, glances, pauses, or comments ignite something in us?

Because being offended is almost never about the present moment. It’s about history. It’s about the old bruise the new comment touched. It’s about the trigger we didn’t know was still alive in us.

We get offended easily because
- we carry unhealed wounds, 
- we expect others to fix what we haven’t faced,
- we personalise everything,
- we assume intention,
- we fear being seen for who we really are,
- we crave validation,
- we want to be right,
- we’ve normalised outrage,
and, most of all,
- we forget that other people are just as imperfect and fragile as we are.

To be offended is human. But to stay offended is a choice.

Most offence is nothing more than our ego screaming for protection. Or our insecurity begging for reassurance. Or our past mistaking the present for danger. And when we finally understand this, something shifts:
Instead of reacting, we reflect.
Instead of attacking, we breathe.
Instead of assuming intention, we assume humanity.

Offence loses its grip when we realise people don’t exist to emotionally stabilise us. They are living their own stories – messy, confused, traumatised, distracted – and sometimes their rough edges scrape against ours. Not out of malice. Out of being human.

So the question isn’t, “Why did they offend me?”
The question is, “Why did it land so deeply?”
And that’s where the real work – the healing work – begins.

The Lie

We all lie. Let’s just start there, because the foundation needs to be honest before we go any further. Some lies are big. Some are small. But at the end of the day, a lie doesn’t become holy because it’s tiny. This is the big-sin / small-sin game we love to play, as if softening the edges changes the shape. It doesn’t. A lie is still a lie. Sin is still sin. An excuse is still an excuse – based most often on a lie.

But lying is not a simple “good people don’t do this” and “bad people do.” No. It lives in the grey. It sits in the in-between where human psychology complicates everything. People lie out of fear, embarrassment, shame, habit, survival instinct, conflict avoidance, people-pleasing, ego protection – the list goes on. 

Someone tells part of the truth. Someone avoids a detail. Someone sugar-coats because they think you’ll crumble if they serve it straight. Someone lies because the truth costs too much. And sometimes you lie because confronting reality is harder than rearranging it.

And this brings us to the uncomfortable part – the moment we ask:
When someone lies to me… what role do I play in that interaction?
Not “What about me caused the lie?” but “What about my reactions makes truth feel unsafe?” 

It takes two to tango, not because I force someone to lie, but because I am part of the emotional ecosystem where the lie happens. If I explode at honesty, people will hide from me. If I punish vulnerability, people will choose comfort over truth. If I treat mistakes like mortal crimes, people will protect themselves from me. These are not excuses for dishonesty – they are insights. Reflections. A willing look in the mirror instead of pointing at everyone else’s cracks while pretending mine don’t exist.

And when someone lies to me, I can’t just ask, “Why did they do that?”
I also have to ask, “How do I respond to truth? How do I respond to discomfort? Have I really never bent the truth myself?”

We judge loudly the things we’ve done quietly.

And yes, there is a difference between a human who lies once and a person who habitually lies. One is a stumble. The other is a pattern. And patterns require boundaries, not just forgiveness. Knowing which is which saves a lot of heartache.

But let’s not pretend we’re above the little lies – the socially acceptable ones.

Someone asks, “Am I fat?”
You respond, “No, you’re beautiful, just the way you are!”
But the truth might be:
“Well… you aren’t thin.”
Or even more honestly:
“Yes, you’ve gained weight.”
But we don’t say that. We’re terrified of hurting people. Terrified of consequences. Terrified of being the villain in someone else’s story for speaking plainly. So we sugar-coat – and then convince ourselves that sugar isn’t just another form of deception.

Another example:
“Hi, how are you?”
“I’m fine, and you?”

We say it automatically. A script. A reflex. A polite social handshake. But let’s be honest: no one is “fine.” Not really. Not fully. Not every day. And we don’t say what’s actually going on because… we don’t want to overwhelm someone; we don’t want to seem weak; we don’t trust them with our truth; we worry they’ll judge us; we fear becoming “too much”; we sense they don’t actually want the real answer; or we simply don’t have the emotional energy to unpack our own chaos in the middle of a grocery aisle or WhatsApp chat.

So we lie. A tiny lie. A socially acceptable lie. A lie wrapped in a smile. Not because we’re deceitful, but because vulnerability feels dangerous. We say “fine” because it is the safest answer. The least complicated. The most protective. It’s a shield, not a deception. A way of keeping the world out until we decide who is safe enough to let in.

But it still proves the point:

We all lie – sometimes to others, sometimes to ourselves – not out of malice, but out of fear, exhaustion, caution, or habit.

Even the smallest conversation reveals how complex truth really is.

Take a look at the rants on Facebook. Someone posts about how exhausted they are, how awful their week has been, and how life has drained every last drop of patience from them. And then the story shifts: They describe the “bitch-face” woman standing in the coffee aisle – taking up too much space with her fully loaded trolley and her “humongous body.” And because this woman existed in the wrong place at the wrong time, BAM – slamming a trolley into her becomes justified. Worth it. Almost heroic. How dare she block an aisle! How dare she not read the emotional radar of someone having a terrible week! How dare she simply… be there.

And how do the fans, followers, friends, and family respond?
“Yes! Well done!”
“They deserved it!”
“You showed them!”
Really? Is that the truth? Is that wisdom? Is that kindness? Is that decency?
Or – and this is far more likely – are we just applauding bad behaviour because it’s easier than being honest?

Honesty takes courage. And courage is not something everyone uses daily. It is far simpler to validate someone’s rage than to gently say, “Hey… maybe that wasn’t okay,” or, “Maybe your bad week doesn’t justify harming someone else,” or, “Maybe the aisle-blocker wasn’t your enemy – maybe she was just a tired human too.”

But calling someone out requires bravery.
It requires maturity.
It requires risking their anger – risking the relationship – in order to speak truth instead of feeding ego.

Our Debt has been Paid

And now we reach the heart of the matter – the thread that holds all of this together:

Jesus died for our sins. 

Every one. Big, small, polite, messy, intentional, accidental – all of them.

Living a Christ-like life doesn’t mean perfection. It doesn’t mean parading our righteousness like a trophy. It doesn’t mean stoning ourselves to pulp every time we fall short. It means aiming for the bullseye every single day. Trying. Reaching. Turning our faces toward the character of Christ even when our feet stumble.

And when we miss – and we will miss – we don’t sit in the dust and punish ourselves. We pray. We ask for forgiveness. We breathe. And tomorrow, we try again.

There is no need to weaponize Scripture. No need to force-feed verses while pointing fingers at everyone else’s failures. No need for the “holier than thou” act that fools no one – not even ourselves. The truth is simple and humbling:

I am a sinner. And so is he. And she. And them. And everyone around me.

We will offend. We will lose it. We will say the wrong thing. We will bend the truth. We will hide. We will fail. But we will also rise. We will find our centre again. We will apologise, adjust, grow.

We will get up – or get over it – and we will go on.

Yes! Indeed! I, too, am human.

Fragile. Flawed. Learning.

Trying every day to be better than yesterday, but never pretending I don’t fall short. And some days, I might even be too tired or depressed or anxious to bother being better! There may be many of these days. And so be it! 

Because?

God reads the heart. 

And that’s the truth – the hard truth, the soft truth, the human truth, and the truth that sets us free.

Teach Me

Take all of this with a grain of salt. Leave a comment. Teach me how you see it.

I’ve always believed that life is a school, and I am a lifelong learner – able and willing to learn from others.

Every perspective, every story, every truth and lie, every stumble and rise teaches me something. And if I can keep learning, growing, and reflecting, then maybe that’s enough.