In this month of February in which we often think of I Corinthians 13, I remember a phrase that may have originated with the Puritans. Presume charitably. It certainly is derived from parts of I Corinthians 13, like the admonitions to think no evil and to believe and to hope all things.

I have heard a modern way of saying it is to think the best of someone else until they prove us wrong! But it is more than giving the benefit of the doubt.

I have heard teaching more than once that we tend to lay our own personalities and emotions over other people and assume that they think exactly like us in any given circumstance. So, for example, if I would respond to someone sarcastically in a conversation, I assume that they too would be sarcastic in that conversation. Only maybe they are not doing that!

Because we are created as complex human beings and we interact with complex human beings, thinking the best of the other person's response (or asking them about it instead of assuming) is not something easy to implement. I believe this is an area for all of us to approach with great humility. We are so often wrong about other people.

In Joey's last year of high school, 2012, the youth group went skiing and tubing at Massanutten. After trying to coax Joey out of the lodge all day to tube down the mountain (I had done it several times), he finally came with me at nightfall. We dragged our tubes up the steps to the top of the mountain, in a crowd of dozens of people.

Then, disaster. When it was our turn, Joey looked down the mountain and froze. He was going nowhere!

I was so afraid he would panic and try to run down the steep back side of the mountain. I told him to stay right there while I got help. Then I jumped in my tube and went down.

At the bottom, there was a staff member watching the night tubing to ensure it was being conducted safely. He was about 20, a very tall white guy with long hair, big discs in his earlobes, and lots of metal in his lips. My heart fell at the sight of him.

I went to the man and explained Joey's situation. What I had not seen was a second, empty set of stairs up the mountainside, on the other side of the run. The man immediately set off up those stairs to go help Joey. Twenty minutes later, here they come, hand in hand down the stairs, with the big guy telling Joey in a soothing voice, "You can do it, buddy, come on. I'll get you some cocoa at the bottom."

I was never so wrong about a person in my life! He was a gentle giant who ministered tenderly to a terrified young man!

When God reminds me to presume charitably, I often go back to that memory. We simply don't know what is inside other people!