Today, I experienced a few negative emotions that are what caused the idea of picking teams to pop into my head in the first place. I felt rejected. I felt offended. I felt backstabbed.
Picking teams seems like it should be a thing of childhood, a part of the games of gym class. However, people never cease to amaze me nowadays and I can honestly say I've seen some social team-picking here on the college campus. It's not fun to start being the last person picked on the team, especially when you have respect and trust in the people picking teams. It took me quite a while to come to peace with the fact that I had been dropped from one group and new people wanted me on their team: new friends, a new Bible study, and a new sorority. It was uncomfortable, risky, and scary for a slightly introverted person like me to branch out and seek new relationships. I fought feelings of inadequacy, taking the sudden lack of friends personally and thinking of it as a reflection of myself. I think a lot of people experience times like this, whether it be with a break-up, a failing friendship, or a challenging co-worker.
Tonight there was a conference at which I witnessed and experienced additional social team-picking. Cliques of people sitting together during the snack break. People walking past acquaintances as if they don't exist, ignoring them and pushing forward to give a cheerful greeting to more popular friends. Groups chuckling together at extremist and religious speakers during the controversial documentary "Indoctrination". People, in my perspective, love to have other people on their team. They seek that feeling of acceptance, sometimes even if it excludes, disrespects, or offends another person in the process.
Seeing, hearing, and experiencing that exclusion breaks my heart, but glory to God, those emotions passed with a quick prayer and a moment of reflection. Unlike a few weeks ago, tonight I was able to let those feelings of hurt, anger, and frustration dissipate. Rolled eyes, disrespectful laughter, and ignored pass-by were not enough for me to lose my cool.
So what was the difference? Why was seeing people pick teams, rather than acting respectfully and friendly, not enough to make me lose my temper?
I think the difference can only be answered with one word: Jesus.
The important thing to remember is that life isn't about picking our own teams. It isn't about me taking action by forming my own team against those people. It isn't about feeling hurt and isolated when no one wants someone on their team.
It's all about Jesus. He wants us to pick Him and to help put everyone on His team. He will always accept us and we are never alone; Christ is with us always.
Christ clearly stated His greatest commandments:
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." -Matthew 22:37-39
Loving Christ and loving our neighbor means giving them grace. Even when it seems contrary to our gut instincts to lash out in anger or frustration, we should be loving our neighbors with patience, the way Christ loves us. Life isn't about picking teams and making people feel excluded or judged. It's all about showing others the way to unconditional acceptance in Christ, the same acceptance we desire for ourselves.
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