Our family was given a Holstein cow that wasn’t much good for producing milk anymore. We butchered it on the farm and brought it home in the back of my pick-up in quarters. We put a piece of plywood covered with a sheet on the dining room table, and brought the cow in a quarter at a time and plopped it on the table. Everyone, grandkids included, gathered around the table and cut all the meat off of the bones in fairly small pieces. Then we ran it through a small meat grinder twice and made it all into hamburger. The hamburger tasted delicious, but the highlight of the butchering was the liver and onions that a Patty fixed me, whooooeeeee that was good. That cows liver must have weighed close to 20 lbs, and nobody in my family likes it except for me. People don’t like liver because of the texture but if you soak it for 2 hours in lemon juice the texture changes and it tastes just like a really good steak, really, and with the onions and mushrooms it is better than a really good steak. I know, I know, you don’t believe me. That’s alright, it just means more liver for me.

I like and I dislike are words we all say a lot. I like liver and onions, you don’t. I like Fords and you like Chevy’s. I like the rain and you hate the rain. Those likes and dislikes don’t matter much, but if I said, I like him but I don’t like you, that is a bit more serious, especially if it affects the way I treat and honor you. Is it possible for me to purposely reduce the fervency of my likes and dislikes to the point that I have a high level of tolerance for just about everything, and a high level of acceptance for just about any person. If the purpose is unity, peace, and wanting to positively influence someone toward faith in Christ, I can do that. Some would say, that is pretending, no, pretending is when we are trying to hide who we really are from others in order to look good. Tolerance and acceptance are all about the other person, wanting them to feel accepted and loved.