Corporate America has played in the global landscape for over two decades. It altered our perspective and has given rise to numerous issues and considerations from religion, to lower priced manufacturing, to new approaches in the medical field. We have become a global society with new rules and politically correct perspectives.

At work, I deal daily with people from several countries, religious backgrounds and cultures. At church, I cross paths with people from about 70 countries who have moved to the area and attend. I have become so comfortable mingling with multiple cultures, that I sometimes forget the biases and assaults that fearful people project onto races they don’t understand.

I had a conversation with one woman from India who shared her spiritual views and attempted to explain the main characters in her story by comparing them to Jesus and the devil. While there was a direct correlation to the devil, she said that Jesus was completely unique.

She understood correlations to the heavenly Father and even the Spirit, but she was perplexed at who this Jesus character was. In all her experience with multiple cultures, and in all her religious studies, she concluded that most religions do about the same thing, just from different angles, with one exception — Jesus.

She couldn’t understand why a god would lay down his life for bad people. Nor did she understand the concept of grace. She needed to understand why a god would love someone who hadn’t achieved a certain level of goodness.

Unfortunately, she faced a barrage of negative comments scolding her views and suggesting she was headed to hell. Those demeaning her were doing so out of their ignorance. They didn’t understand she was an intelligent person who could make a valued decision if given the right information.

In response to her inquiry, I told her that it wasn’t about what we do or how we attempt to earn enlightenment, but rather about who God is and what he chose to do out of love for us, his creation. Our discussion expanded to include comments about unconditional love, which was beyond her base of understanding, but she quickly picked up on it and appreciated my candidness on the subject.

Growing up in a home where I received numerous beatings every week skewed my understanding of love. Thankfully I had several people who came along side of me, rather than telling me I was headed to hell, and they helped me to not only understand unconditional love, but to embrace it.

This woman could directly relate to my story, not because of an abusive past, but because of those ridiculing her and telling her she was headed to hell. She soon understood their views about hell and was thankful to know the truth, but she always wondered why her accusers didn’t instead demonstrate unconditional love to her – Something that would have immediately draw her to God.

Only those who have laid down their personal desires to live a transparent life guided by God can demonstrate unconditional love through humility. It’s all about people being able to see God in us and through our actions. It’s not about people seeing us as great achievers. After all, our story is about grace, not success.