Answer: In our real life, we have to interact with different people everyday. Because everyone has different personality, hobby, habit, temper and so on, the conflict and gap between us will inevitably appear as we get along with each other, which brings great trouble to our work and life. How to practice can help us interact with each other harmoniously? The following are four principles of practice. Hopefully it will be helpful to you.
Firstly, we should love, respect, understand, and tolerate each other while getting along together. We are corrupted by Satan so deeply that we lose the conscience and sense we should have, become concerned solely with our own profits, and don’t have love and care for others but merely live for ourselves, which causes us to scheme and guard against one another and not to be able to get along normally with each other. The Lord Jesus taught us, “A new commandment I give to you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34). God loves us, so He also requires us to love each other. According to God’s requirement, as we see them encounter difficulties and become weak and negative, we should exhort and help others; when they are suffering, we should comfort and support them; if they do something to offend us, we should forgive and tolerate them. As long as we practice like that, we can get along well with others.
Secondly, we should treat others correctly, neither think too highly of others nor belittle others, and treat their shortcomings and mistakes fairly and justly. The Lord Jesus said, “And why behold you the mote that is in your brother’s eye, but consider not the beam that is in your own eye? Or how will you say to your brother, Let me pull out the mote out of your eye; and, behold, a beam is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast out the mote out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5). If we want to treat others correctly, we cannot fixate our eyes on others but learn to discover their strengths. If we always look at the shortcomings of other people, it is impossible for us to get on well with them forever. Nobody is perfect, and everyone is likely to make mistakes and also has its own strengths and shortcomings, so we cannot set our expectations of others too high nor force what we think is right on them, instead, we should discover their strengths and draw on their advantages, thus, we will be able to treat them correctly.
Thirdly, the most crucial principle of getting along with others is to establish the normal relationship with God. God says, “If you don’t have a proper relationship with God, no matter what you do to maintain your relationships with other people, no matter how hard you work or how much energy you exert, it will still belong to a human philosophy of life. You are maintaining your position among people through a human perspective and a human philosophy so that they will praise you. You do not establish proper relationships with people according to the word of God. If you don’t focus on your relationships with people but maintain a proper relationship with God, if you are willing to give your heart to God and learn to obey Him, very naturally, your relationships with all people will become proper.” In our real life, we often keep the relationship with others based on Satan’s philosophies like flattering and fawning over someone etc. as the principles of conduct. God hates those behaviours because they are exalting Satan’s philosophies, not practicing God’s words. God requires us to establish the normal relationship with God first as we interact with others. We should act according to God’s words and accept God’s observation no matter what we speak and do. When we have a good relationship with God, we will have God’s guidance in everything and gain God’s blessing while getting along with others.
Fourthly, we should have wisdom to deal with the relationship with others. The Lord Jesus said, “…be you therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matthew 10:16). We also need use wisdom to interact with other people and learn to discern different people according to God’s words, thereby knowing whom we should draw close to and whom we should stray from. We should treat good people with love, but stay away from and even abandon evil people in case that they take advantage of and harm us. Just like what it says in the Bible, “A prudent man foresees the evil, and hides himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished” (Proverbs 27:12).
As long as we keep practicing the four principles above, we can get along normally with others.