Over the next couple of weeks, I will be winding down the theme of “Mockingbird Mondays.” As I come to the end of this journey, Iwanted to reflecton a few of my favorite quotes, characters and lessons from Harper Lee’s classic. The novel’s most famous line is also it’s most profound:

“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

In modern culture, I find Atticus’s pronouncement to Scout more and more significant. What does it really mean to “climb into someone else’s skin and walk around in it?” How often do we truly take the time to see the world from someone else’s perspective?

For Christians, this should be a way of life. We serve a God who essentially climbed into human skin and walked around in it. I love how Eugene Peterson describes Jesus by saying that God “moved into the neighborhood.”

Somehow I think we miss the fact that God’splan to redeem the world and bring salvation to us began when he experienced life from our point of view. To think about our faithin this wayshould transform the way we interact with our neighbors, the way we practice our faith, and even the way we talk about Jesus.

How can placing yourself in someone else’s shoes (imagining what it would be like to live in your neighbor’s life) change the way you interact with them? How can it impact the way you view your faith?