This weekend I heard popular speaker and author Max Lucado say that most people are 90% good and 10% under construction. His obvious point being that despite the sometimes seemingly overwhelming flaws in people, the good by far outweighs the bad.  Now, I know right out of the gate, some of you disagree with these numbers. You’re thinking that you know a lot of people who need a high-five. In the face. With a chair. And there’s another category worse yet–the people to whom you’d like to channel Bruno Mars and say, “Tell the devil I said Hey when you get back to where you’re from.” Ah yes.  We’ve all got a few in our lives.  But the reality is, “bad” people really are few and far between.

Sometimes when we have difficult relationships in our lives, whether it be family members, in-laws, our kids, spouse, or the people we work with, we can easily become micro-focused on their flaws and forget about all of the positive qualities that make up their majority. Instead of seeing the person as a whole and appreciating all of their gifts, talents and amazing, God-given personality traits, we end up like a laser beam, focusing in on the few negatives and forgetting the positives all together. We start thinking in terms of extremes– as in “they ALWAYS…” or they “NEVER”… and our perspective becomes skewed. In fact, we start to think that some people are actually 90% bad and only a measly 10% good. God help us.

We’ve all got our blind spots. We’ve all got our issues and the areas of our lives that are under construction. That’s just the way it is. And yes, it’s true. Maybe some people are a little closer to 80/20 or 60/40 –but that still means that they are largely good. That they are mostly made up of positives. That they can enrich our lives if we would use a little more grace and a little less tunnel vision. And if it’s our kids, our spouse, or family member, it especially means that they are by far, worthy of our love and the investment of our hearts.

And if not. If you have people in your life who really are that bad, then take the high road. Be kinder than necessary. Chances are you have no idea of the battle they’re fighting and they need your 90%.