At a meeting hosting an international panel of guests, an audience member was very sure of the superiority of one side of a polarized global debate. She explained how the issue was playing out locally, and presumed the panel would endorse her view of what was right.

Diplomatically, one of the panel members said of the local folks’ varying views, “They might all be right.” Another panelist gruffly piped up, “Or they might all be wrong!”

Navigating today’s world—personally, locally, and globally—can feel like that. Many people in complex situations are so convinced of their rightness that they are harboring a heightened sense of others as the sinners rather than heeding biblical counsel to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). Key to this salvation is a willingness to recognize and rise above the ways in which we seem to be separate from God and to be missing the mark at living our innate goodness.