Eye Judgement . . .

There are right ways and wrong ways of judging someone, and before you get all righteous on me, yes, I clearly know that God is our only judge.  However, is that 100% accurate?

For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; it is He who will save us. Isaiah 33:22

That scripture makes it pretty clear, that God will be our judge, but does that mean that we can’t judge others?

“Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly.” John 7:24

And let me tell you about judging by mere appearances . . . it’s the reason why I’m blogging about judgement, but before I get to that story, please bear with me. . .

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” Matthew 7:3

In laymen’s terms, don’t tell someone that they shouldn’t be drinking alcohol when you are smoking a cigarette.  That is judging incorrectly, that whole plank in your own eye thing that Jesus was referring to in the above scripture.

Now to the story that inspired this blog . . .

Let’s face it, we can do an awful lot of judging others in our lives, mainly with our words, but there are other ways we can judge people, and that is where this story begins . . .

I can honestly say that I am normally quite successful when it comes to my ability to steer clear of judging others with my words, but there are a few other ways that we can judge. We can judge with our body language and even with our eyes.  As try as I may to not judge in those particular ways, I find myself shaking my head at those kids who wear jeans with 85% holes and 15% denim in the winter time.  I can tell myself that I am concerned they will get frostbite, when in reality, I am judging them because they are wearing something that I would have never worn as a teenager, myself.

Although, I did have a pair of holey shorts back in the day.  However, those holes were attached to some sort of spandex material. There was no skin peeking through those cleverly disguised openings in my swag shorts.  That was my first time using the word “swag”, so I hope I used it correctly. Just in case I didn’t, what I meant to say was that my shorts were cool.

That my friends, is how incorrect judgements begin. Just because we wouldn’t do something, doesn’t mean that someone else who is doing it is wrong.

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 1 Peter 3:3-4

Ultimately, God cares about the inside of someone and not what they are wearing, and we should do the same.  If only our eyes were aware of that.

I had spent the day shopping with one of my sisters when I found some sort of pergola that I knew would help solve the problem of too much sun on my back porch.  My husband had wanted to build a roof over our porch, but I felt a roof would keep sunlight from coming into my living room.  When I saw that on sale pergola, I felt certain, I’d found the solution to our problem that would make both of us happy. I snapped a picture of the structure and showed it to my husband later that evening. 

The next day, the two of us found our way back to that store to buy the only pergola left in stock. With our purchase paid for, my husband pulled his truck to the front of the store, and went back inside to wait for an employee to bring our deconstructed pergola out to his truck.

While waiting on my husband, inside the cab of his truck, I found my gaze drifting to a man and a woman, nearing the front entry of the store.  The man was dressed in a black t-shirt designed with the word “nightmare” above a very large skull.  His arms were covered with tattoos, and he looked very much like the nightmare that his shirt indicated, and so I instinctively reached over and locked the doors on my husband’s truck.  I continued watching the man, as he entered the store, at the same time my husband and one very small female store employee came out the exit. My husband had already instructed me that he didn’t want me helping to lift the heavy boxes that he and the employee had brought out on dollies, and so I helplessly watched my husband struggle to get the very heavy boxes in the bed of our truck. He was suffering from a back injury and I was concerned that he’d hurt his back further by lifting those boxes. In the midst of my worry, the man whose “nightmare” t-shirt had caused me alarm, exited the store and came forward to help my husband.

I heard him say, “let me help you sir,” as his tattooed arms helped make light, my husband’s work.

To say I felt both ashamed and humbled that day, as I watched my husband reach out and shake the hand of his helper, would be putting it mildly.  I was downright embarrassed for my eye judgement of someone because of how they looked, without knowing the character of that man.  God expects us to judge righteously, as He himself judges us.

As my husband and I pulled away from that store, I thought of the very valuable lesson that God had shown me that day . . .

Judging with our eyes is still judging, so the next time you see a teenager with 85% holes in their jeans, resist the urge to roll your eyes and to cover them with a blanket, after all, God judges the heart, and so should we.

“I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:10