Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has a confession to make: He is, he claims, a jerk. Despite this short-coming he makes a serious point about how not to be one.
I don't like being a jerk and I don't like making excuses for my nasty behavior. So I attempt to be nicer, more likable. I pretend to be genial and gregarious in the hope that I'll eventually become less of a jerk.
But it doesn't work. The more I pose and pretend that I'm something I'm not, the more I appear to be a hypocritical jerk.
The main problem is that I go about it all wrong. Instead of trying to be more likable I should focus on being more loving. As C.S. Lewis once noted, "Christian Love (or Charity) for our neighbors is quite a different thing from liking or affection."
Read the whole thing. There's as much wisdom in it as there is humor.
RLC