Who Am I To Judge?

The effect of growing up with critical and judgmental parents still haunted me as an adult. I swore I was never going to be that way, but I found out I did have a strong critic in me as well. After all I had learned from the best. I was taught very well growing up to hide my inner struggles and conflicts and pretend to be righteous and look down on everyone else and their imperfections.  I remember many times listening to my mother slice someone to pieces at home and then wrap it all up in a pretty package with a bow and hand it to that person at church while smiling to their face the whole time. I would look at those people differently when I saw them and condemn them silently in my heart.

My father would preach about “Do Not Judge” and how we must “Love Everyone”, yet why were there so many people in the church acting so judgmental and critical towards others? The so called “Christians” I knew were condemning everyone who disagreed with them to the burning flames of hell. They seemed more focused on preaching, judging, and condemning, then loving and caring for others.

So what did the Good Shepherd mean when He commanded us, “do not judge others?” (Matthew 7:1NLT) Did He really mean we should never judge others? How literally do we take His words?  Is it wrong of us to have an opinion? The next verse says: “For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use on judging is the standard by which you will be judged.” (Matthew 7:2NLT) So should we be careful of what we think and say about others because we will be held to the standard we force upon others? Did He mean that we have no right to point out someone’s faulty behavior in order to teach them the correct behavior? Did He mean that we are just to accept each other’s bad habits and tolerate all sorts of rudeness and sometimes evil attitudes and actions?

I believe it is about the kind of judging that simply condemns people. The kind of judging that wants to put people in their place. It’s the judging that has a spirit of criticism and that isn’t really interested in forgiving, understanding, working something out, or simply trying to connect with the other person. It’s an attitude of putting people down when you think they are wrong, rather than finding ways to build them up. It’s the self-righteous attitude that points out where others have failed while neglecting to first evaluate your own life. Its being a hypocrite by pretending to have it all together, but call other people on the carpet for their sins and shortcomings. And that is the blind, hypocritical, self-righteous judging that I grew up with.

I remember my mom always used to talk about how my uncle (her brother) and his wife were going to hell because they were sinners (according to her). They were the most loving people and I loved spending time with them and my cousins. I even secretly wished that I could stay with them and not go home with my family. But every time we left to go home I cried because I was so afraid my uncle and aunt would die before I saw them again and burn in the eternal fires of hell. Even though I loved them dearly I still judged them as sinners because that was what my mom taught me to believe by her judgment of them.

When my mom passed away I remember a lady came up to me in the funeral home and told me “you better get your heart right with God because you will never get to see your mom in heaven if you don’t.”  I was so angry! How dare she say that! She knew nothing about my heart and my relationship with the Good Shepherd! As I thought about this incident later, it hit me like a ton of bricks that my mom did not know my uncle and aunt’s hearts either when she judged them as sinners, and I had judged them also without knowing their hearts…who was I to pass judgment on them about their relationship with the Good Shepherd? I wrote a letter to them asking them to forgive me.

There have been many times I have been guilty of gossiping about others and making critical and negative remarks about someone as a putdown. Someone that didn’t live up to MY value of “hard work”, I judged as “lazy.” Someone who didn’t follow MY idea of “giving”, I judged as “selfish”. One day I heard what was coming out of my mouth and I stopped in mid sentence. I was becoming that critical hypocrite that I always vowed I would never become. I was all worried about the specks in everyone else’s eyes while a log was in mine. (Matthew 7:3-5) I sat down on the couch and sobbed. I ask the Good Shepherd for forgiveness and for Him to help me with my attitude.

It is hard for me not to judge others when I look through my unfiltered human eyes. I seemed to see everything that is wrong and nothing that anyone does as right. I am to quick to think I know it all and have an answer for everything. That day I started praying that I would be able to look at those I come in contact with through the Good Shepherds eyes…through HIS filters.

He showed me it’s about loving and encouraging each other to be the very best we can be, with His help. Understanding, seeing, hearing, and accepting someone for who they are is love. I need to overlook the faults and weakness of others and if I need to speak up to someone it should be with an attitude of humility and concern for the other person. That there is a difference between judging a person and judging a person’s actions or behavior. Everyone of us was created in His image and for that reason we all deserve respect. However, judging behavior and actions is a necessary part of life. I still make judgments about a persons honesty or integrity or when deciding whether someone can be trustworthy friend. 

People are always entitled to make their own choices and I shouldn’t judge them, ESPECIALLY when I have never walked a mile in their shoes. I need to keep my judgments to myself and keep in mind that my judgments are only based on the limited knowledge I have. I cannot control anyone else’s behavior, I can only control my own (words, attitudes and actions). And I am not accountable for anyone else’s behavior, only my own. 

I believe the Good Shepherd expects us to judge actions and behaviors. We have a responsibility to judge someone’s behavior as to whether it is right or wrong especial as it relates to us , but we do not have the right to judge that person. There is a difference. We have no idea what someone has been through or the things that led them to be the way they are. Only the Good Shepherd knows those things, which is why He is the only one that has the right to judge them.

If we spend our time judging and looking down on people, how can we make a difference in their lives? We all are going to be confronted with choices in life where we can make each others journey better, or at least less miserable. I do not want to be the person who is too busy judging everyone else that I lose my opportunity to make a real difference in this world.

In the end the Good Shepherd is the only one who will judge us all, and He will judge in perfect justice and righteousness. He sees what is true in each of our hearts and will judge accordingly.

To look upon another — his weaknesses, his sins, his faults, his defects — is to look upon one who is suffering. He is suffering from negative passions, from the same sinful human corruption from which you yourself suffer. This is very important: do not look upon him with the judgmental eyes of comparison, noting the sins you assume you’d never commit. Rather, see him as a fellow sufferer, a fellow human being who is in need of the very healing of which you are in need. Help him, love him, pray for him, do unto him as you would have him do unto you. (Tikhon of Zadonsk)