One of the talks I attended during the conference (ok, so maybe it was the only talk I was able to pay complete attention to) is the one where the speaker talked about grace-filled relationships.
One of the things she mentioned that really stuck was the one about the difficult people. She said that perfectionists, control freaks, and a couple other kinds of people have got to be the hardest individuals to deal with, because you can never please them, no matter what you do. This hit me hard, because until a few years ago, I was both (a perfectionist and a control freak, I mean). I’d be the type who would want things done in a certain way, and if one errs for even the slightest bit, all hell would break loose. I thought initially that I’m doing the people around me a favor by being a nitpicker, because every little mistake or problem could then be spotted and properly dealt with. What I didn’t realize is that sometimes, far from being helpful, I end up hurting people by being completely blunt with them about their mistakes. There’s such a thing called tact, and this is something that the Lord has been trying to teach me (which is still a problem for me sometimes).
Point of this is, no matter how well or good or nice your intentions are, what you might be doing might actually be hurtful to people, and I think it’s best that we try and be aware of everything that we do before we do something, otherwise, we’ll be doing more harm than good.