Rethinking Dislike
Seeing more of a person than the first impression showed.
Is there someone you have no real reason to avoid, and you avoid them anyway? Dislike is quieter than anger. It is a small turning away: you take the other line, you leave the message unanswered. Often you could not say what they did wrong.
But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
1 Samuel 16:7
Earlier in the chapter God sends Samuel to one family to choose a king. Samuel looks at one son, tall and impressive, and is sure this is the one. God’s correction is not that Samuel chose badly, but that he is reading the outside. Man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. That is an honest description of the limit of human sight.
Most dislike is built from what Samuel had: a face, a manner, a tone, thirty seconds. Real information, and thin. Scripture does not order you to feel warm toward everyone, or to pretend the feeling is gone. It says your read on a person is partial, and only God has seen a whole heart, theirs and yours. That is no reason to force a friendship, and every reason to hold the verdict loosely.
Today, pick one person you have quietly written off and give them thirty unhurried seconds: greet them by name, ask one ordinary question, stay for the answer. Do not try to like them. Just learn one thing you did not know.
What I see of a person is real, and it is not all of them.
1 Samuel 16:7