I am not easy to surprise or amaze, but something happened today that blew my mind!
Many a moon ago - about 10 years worth of moons ago, in fact - I used to work at a factory that currently is not in business here. For a short time we had a coworker there who was... well, I won't say what kind of church he went to, but it was well known for being strict about things that every other church doesn't even consider an issue. This guy was always looking for a debate. I mean actively looking; he would continually say things to bait people into arguments about the church standards he wanted to argue about. He was forever disparaging others for not believing as he did, and he made it very clear that the reason he was putting them down was because they didn't believe as he did.
I would always deflect the impending arguments for two reasons. One, I didn't think they would profit anything. "A man convinced against his will/is of his own opinion still" you know. The second, more important reason is because I remembered something Paul said. He was talking about people who believe certain things are bad and people who don't. He said if someone believes something is a sin, but that something is perfectly fine, if the man does it believing it is a sin then it is a sin to him. Doesn't matter if there's nothing in the world wrong with that thing, if he does it believing he shouldn't do it then it's a sin to him. So if I somehow WAS successful in debating this guy into a corner, I might be talking him into doing something he still believed in his heart was wrong. I thought that would not only be unprofitable, but a very wrong thing to do. So every time he tried to start a debate with me I would always demur.
Today I was outside changing the external trash can and this guy walks up to me. He introduced himself as the guy I used to work with and he starts talking about how he used to always argue with people about that stuff, and he apologizes for all the times he tried to start an argument. Ten years later. Totally out of the blue.
We had a nice chat and I got to explain to him why I always deferred debates back then. He would not have understood it back then but he understood well now. And I think he looked a lot better now than he did back then. He looked happier now.
Kinda boosted my faith in humanity. Not completely restored it of course, but helped it out a good little bit, for sure.