The world is filled with competition.

It almost feels like no matter what circles you run in and no matter how kind you are to others, someone inevitably wants to see you fail. There are people who claw their way to the top and refuse to acknowledge anyone else’s successes, or there are people who talk behind your back just when you finally feel like you’ve gotten ahead. Often when you seek companionship, you find assassins. What a blessing it is when you find people who truly love you and want the best for you.

But what a tragedy it is that people don’t choose to love each other well, especially when we observe how wicked the world truly is. What kind of impact would it have if we truly sought the best for everyone we met, spurring one another on as we’re commanded to do? We need encouragement and support from one another like never before. Look at how hard it is to maintain integrity in a self-seeking environment, how heavy it is to parent in a culture of lies, how the entire system is set up to keep us distracted and exhausted. 

I can’t understand willfully and deliberately causing hurt. I don’t understand people who want to bring others down when we need each other to keep things on the right track. So many of us are desperately seeking goodness in the midst of all this darkness.

But there is another aspect to this that we need to recognize – sometimes when we’ve been hurt and rejected, we start to believe that everyone is out to get us. I know I’ve been guilty of dwelling too much on others’ motives, of believing that betrayal is inevitable and around every corner. And while it’s no secret that we’ll all experience those kinds of wounds, we don’t have to live under the cloud of fear that tells us we must live out our days despised and unloved. Those are whispered lies from the enemy, and we can refuse to listen to them.

This is why concerning ourselves with what anyone else thinks is a lost cause. If you are someone who believes in building one another up and pointing each other toward Christ, take heart – you are not alone. These are the successes that matter – celebrating each others’ triumphs and being a voice of encouragement and motivation during each others’ struggles. 

We are not contending with one another. The battles we fight are spiritual in nature, and we are running our own individual races. Each of us is combating different foes and up against different odds than the next person, and inevitably, we all encounter critics and naysayers. That knowledge should guide us toward a kinder, more empathetic perspective, and also serve as a reminder that other voices don’t matter when we’re following hard after God’s will in our lives.

We all have a choice in how we use our wounds. I’ve heard the phrase ‘hurting people hurt people’ many times, and while that’s often true, it doesn’t have to be. I believe there are plenty of hurting people who know better, and therefore do better. Today let’s have the courage to step out in faith and move forward in our God-given purposes, boldly conquering the doubts that come our way and rooting for those who are doing the same.