Judgment. It is so hard for us, as humans, not to pass judgment. It’s always intentional or something we can control, but it does happen. When someone comes in late, we immediately judge them and want to know why they’re late. When someone’s card declines, we judge them. We feel bad and embarrassed for them, but we judge them. When we see someone on the street asking for money, we judge them and we try to conceive of all the ways it is their fault that they are where they are in the position they’re in. In all these examples, there are two perspectives – the ones we, as outsiders looking in have and the second perspective one we aren’t privy to. It is the perspective of the student who has arrived late because he had to get his siblings fed and to school first because his parents are sick, of the woman whose card has declined, not because she didn’t have the funds, but because the card machine is broken, and of the person asking for money because they were laid off their job from their job with no benefits and his landlord has been raising his rent to the point that he can no longer afford it. My point is, very rarely do we have the full picture and sometimes, even when we do, it is never our place to judge.
We know we shouldn’t judge in any form or fashion – that’s not a secret, but I want to talk about a specific kind of judgment that is often the result of having our inherently different life experiences and different dispositions and makeups entirely. It is often because of and even despite those experiences, that we are impacted – whether that be positively or negatively. It impacts the way we live, the way we communicate, and overall, how we interact with others. It is easy to feel as though your way of communicating and expressing love is more efficient and it very well may be, for us, but what ought to be extended to your friends and family when you realize that they communicate, process and express love differently is not judgment, frustration or a wish that they communicated like you, but grace, time and the freedom to express themselves in the exact way they need to. What we perceive as a gap between us and our loved ones is an opportunity to build a bridge of understanding and patience – not judgment.
Case in point: Has anyone ever sought your advice on how you endured through a trial in the past? They perceive something special about you and the way you were able to move past that trial and they want to know how you did it. They seek your counsel, most likely because they are grappling with a trial as well. For you, it may seem like the past and it seems simple now that you overcome it, so your flesh takes over and you judge them, wondering how they don’t see what you now see so clearly and you quickly forget that you were once in their exact position. So there comes that judgment, but let me tell you why that judgment isn’t okay and how it is hypocritical in nature in fact. You are judging them because, in your mind, you have surpassed them. You’ve beaten that level already, right? But the reality is that the only thing separating them from you from them is time, wisdom, and grace from God. You too were in a toxic friendship or relationship and after a time period you care not to disclose and with help from your Spirit, you realized you deserved better and now, your friend finds herself in a similar place. Is that for you to judge when you were in a similar place? Is that for you to judge when you can, instead, be helping her? Illuminating to her what the Spirit illuminated to you that set you free, that opened your eyes and saved your life? We don’t go through things to keep the testimony or answer to ourselves, but to uplift others by allowing a lesson we, ourselves, had to learn the hard way to be a lesson they get to avoid altogether because they have us and we have wisdom revealed to us by God.
And if it takes your friend a little longer to find herself and to be set free, that is not your place to judge. You tell her what she needs to know and you give her space and time to process and to really let everything set in. Most of us learn from experience, from being amidst a bad situation and at our own time, waking up and smelling the coffee. Allow your friends and loved ones space and time to smell the coffee too.
As I speak to you, I speak to myself because now and then, I, too am guilty of such frustration and judgment of the fact that the people I love don’t express love the way I do. But every time I even attempt to do that or make a hasty judgment about someone who is struggling through something I have been through, I am reminded of my father’s wisdom – a few words that humble me. Our strength should not weaken someone else. Wisdom is not a weapon to be wielded over the heads of others so as to establish an advantage, but a gift from God that we ought to use as tools of revelation and liberation to set others free in the same way we were.
We perceive differences and unfortunately, it registers in our heads as a bad thing when all it is an opportunity to marvel at how different God made each one of us, but also an opportunity to extend grace and for compassion. It is an opportunity not to draw a line in the sand and place people into categories and boxes, but for us, as a people, to unite and to help one another on this journey called life.
