It is not our job to fix people, change people or judge people. It’s our job to love people. The rest is in God’s hands. Amen!

A friend of mine posted those words on her Facebook page the other day. My first reaction was: Amen! (as a declaration of affirmation).

Two days later, those words resurfaced in my mind and hit me a different way (and I am the first to admit that I sometimes have a peculiar sense of humor). I immediately thought of the expression: You had one job! And burst into laughter.

I thought about all of the memes I have seen across the internet, on social media, using that catchphrase to call attention to blunders made by individuals on the job. The images accompanying the phrase are typically humorous, like a right button with an arrow pointing left and a left button with an arrow pointing right or the word SHCOOL [SCHOOL] painted in a crosswalk.

The images tend to be funny because it’s hard to believe that such obvious errors could be made. While I am not advocating that it is okay to laugh at people who make mistakes, I am saying that we can find comic relief in the innocent mistakes themselves.

After doing a little research on the catchphrase, I discovered that the meme originated in a clip from the movie Ocean’s Eleven (2011). It implies that you had one seemingly simplistic task (one job) to complete and you messed it up.

Messing up the spelling of a word or the direction of an arrow is one thing. But failing to do the one job that we are here on earth to do – love people – is another. When we fail at that, it is no laughing matter.

Yet, we fail time after time –sometimes because we refuse to stretch beyond our comfort zone and sometimes because we put limitations, conditions, and restraints on how we will love others.

There are people in our lives who are easy to love. There are others who take a little work. And there are some who take more effort and energy than we want to (or are willing to) exert.

As people of God, we don’t have the option to put limitations, conditions and restraints on how we love others. If we do, we mess up the one job that we have – to help people experience the love of God through our lives.

Remember that our love for God is directly displayed in our love for God’s people. If we don’t show genuine love for one another, what does that tell us?