God is a witness between you and me. (Gen. 31:50)

The Notre Dame football team had soundly beat the USC team, 51–0. The losing USC coach walked into a locker room full of dejected and despairing players hanging their heads. He stood up in the middle of them and said, “Let’s put this into perspective, team. There are a billion Chinese people who don’t even know this game was played!”

A different perspective changes the way we see things. Genesis 31 is a very different story from varying perspectives. From Laban’s perspective, Jacob was the deceiving, suspiciously successful son-in-law who not only snuck away in the night with his daughters and grandchildren, but also stole his possessions. From Jacob’s perspective, Laban was the demanding, exacting, and betraying father-in-law he could never please who had chased him across the desert in order to hunt him down, kill him, and take his daughters back.

That’s why it’s so important to reconcile with even our enemies. These painful relationships seem to us like simple hero and villain stories, where we are clearly right and the other one is clearly wrong. But even Jacob and Laban, enemies at the start of the story, reconciled with each other and made things right. Have you?

See things from God’s perspective and make broken relationships right.

David Drury is the author of Being Dad and coauthor of SoulShift and Ageless Faith (all Wesleyan Publishing House). He is also the chief of staff of The Wesleyan Church.