The Danger of Judging

I read where the Indians have their own motto in respect to judging. “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins." This is not dissimilar to the mindset Jesus had. Because one of the things He disliked most in humans was their proclivity to judge. Notice what he had to say about it.  “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.”  Does this sound serious or is my emotional system getting the best of me? When we consider this strong admonition from the Lord we realize that there is incredible danger in placing the wrong evaluation upon others. And realistically we have to confess that we are guilty more than we care to admit. You see judging causes us to jump to conclusions like the story of the newspaper reporter I read about. He was searching for a story about the laziness that existed throughout the South when he saw a man in his field, sitting in a chair and hoeing his weeds. This had to be the ultimate in laziness. So he rushed back to his car to start his story when he looked back a second time and what he saw changed his entire outlook. He saw that the pant legs on the farmer hung down loose -- the man had no legs. So what seemed at first to be a story of laziness turned into a story of great courage. We must be careful not to make a hasty assumption--which is one of the foremost traits of judging. A second danger is, it causes us to reflect self-righteousness. Discrediting others becomes a misconstrued way of adding value to our own stature. Of course one only has to look at the teachings of Jesus to learn this behavior is a gross misinterpretation of true spirituality. A person’s worth appreciates only when he finds the good in others. Third, judging challenges God’s authority. Whether done consciously or unconsciously it is an attempt to usurp the position the Creator holds only for Himself. Quite frankly, if we were given the privilege, we would do a lousy job at it. Why? We would do so based on partial information, biased attitudes, and faulty affections. That’s why God keeps this discretion all to himself. He is the only one who can conduct such an assessment with unquestionable justice. Again, judging can be dangerous. It should be avoided because it carries eternal repercussions; but most of all it causes us to overestimate our ability, underestimate the ability of God, and even greater render a less than fair appraisal of others. That being said, we better just leave it to the one who issued the warning: “Do not judge unless you want to be judged.”