Lead With Love

Nicole Johnson ponders how to live faithfully in an increasingly uncomfortable world.  

I was recently leaving my doctor’s office when I encountered another woman walking in with her fly down — actually, not just down, but open, as if it was some sort of intentional fashion choice. I had to make a quick decision: speak up or walk by?  

I spoke up. I had to. “Friendly tip?” I offered. “Your fly is open.” A quick thank-you to the sound of her zipper being righted, and we both continued on our merry way. Simple, well received, and probably safe to assume her day was made a bit better by my choice to step into the uncomfortable and offer my small observation.  

Back in college, I was walking to class when I noticed a girl up ahead of me who had somehow tucked a good portion of the back of her miniskirt into her underwear. I remember thinking how strange it was she hadn’t noticed, as she must have felt things were unusually breezy back there. This one would have been easy for me to ignore, as she was a decent pace ahead of me. Yet I could not, in good conscience, allow her to walk into class like that.  

I ran to catch up with her and sheepishly called out, “Um, excuse me. Your skirt is tucked into your underwear.” I have to say I didn’t get the response I would have expected: something along the lines of profuse gratitude for my heroic action to save her from utter humiliation. No. She simply acted as if this were an everyday occurrence, gave a little giggle, and untucked it as she walked away.  

A few days ago, I was driving down the highway when I noticed a steering wheel on the shoulder. Just the steering wheel. No car attached. No sign of anything amiss aside from the lone, unattached steering wheel rolling around on the side of the road. “Now that is curious,” I thought to myself. And then quickly, as I so often do, I went down a rabbit hole of thoughts on how exactly the steering wheel ended up on the road.  

Funny enough, the noting of this carless wheel was timely — for I love nothing more than a good metaphor — and this was the perfect representation of how I’m feeling lately, navigating what I find to be an increasingly uncomfortable world. In some ways, I feel like the steering wheel has been taken out of my grasp and, to be totally and completely vulnerable here, I’m finding it difficult to know when to be quiet and coast and when to sound the horn.   

To Speak or Not to Speak? That Is the Question.  

The thing is, not all situations so easily discern a “stepping into” like Miss Open Fly or my unfortunate tucked-in comrade. While I may not understand or be comfortable with a certain choice a stranger among me makes, I am finding great comfort in the direction offered in Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians:

Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love. (Ephesians 4:1)

In short, lead with love and you can never go wrong. That I can do.   

All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. [And] be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. (Ephesians 4:31-32)  

Just. Be. Nice.  

I can tell someone their fly is down with a certain level of confidence that it’s a truth they’d want to hear and do something about. I can’t, however, assume it will be well-received if I make a generalization about someone’s life by telling them, essentially, that they’ve lost their steering wheel and are operating with reckless abandon to all things I might hold good and true.  

We do that too much these days. The passive-aggressive comments, the angry posts, assertions about things we don’t fully understand: We’ve lost sight of building one another up and the foundational calling we each have to be nice to one another. I, for one, would love to get back to that. 

To be clear, this is not a laissez-faire “to each his own” or “live and let live" kind of stance. On the contrary. But there’s a balance to be struck somewhere between “your fly is down” and “you seem to have lost all sense of direction.” Other people are not our problem to solve, but they are our opportunity to love, even in the face of disagreement. That’s not to ignore or affirm decisions not based in truth, but rather to remember that we all have been caught with our fly down at one point or another. Steering wheel or not, this journey is a wild ride. So for now, I’ll stay the course and do my best to lead with love.   

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Copyright 2025 Nicole Johnson
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