But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone.
I stand with the Father, who sent me." John 8:15~16 Judgment.
We all do it.
We all know that it is wrong.
To judge another by their flaws.
I've started a side lesson about generosity and gratitude with my children.
How, typically, these two things work in a cycle together.
The more grateful someone becomes, the more generosity they express towards others.
This lead to a conversation about how we could show generosity to other people
that are outside of our family and home. This, in turn, lead to another conversation.
And, this is where the scripture comes in.
I was telling my children how I wished we humans had the capacity to see the
feelings and emotions in the heart of another. Would we be more careful about the
words we chose to speak? Would we use the emotions against each other?
Would we be slow to judge? The Bible tells us not to judge.
God judges us because he can see our actions and our emotions.
He is the only one true judge.
We started to talk about what it might look like if we could see the emotions of
everyone around us. The first thought that came to mind was that of an alien
creature named E.T.. A movie about an alien that came down to visit Earth,
and was accidentally left behind. In the movie, his heart glowed red through his chest.
Why can't we be like that? If we had the ability to do that, would we hide our feelings,
or would we expose them for all to see?
With further discussion, we decided that if we had been created with a way for our
emotions to be visible, we thought that it might work much like a mood ring.
Remember those? Supposedly, if you were happy, it would turn a certain color;
if you were grieved, it would change another color.
So, here you have human beings with slightly transparent skin, with an illuminating
color aura either where our heart beats, or directly in the center of our chest.
The colors would change, swirl, combine, separate, fade, brighten and glow.
I wondered, if we had this ability, would we be more understanding? Would we help
each other more often? Would we be more likely to approach a stranger on the street?
Or, would we manipulate our colors in order to deceive others? Would we use it
to harm someone who was already feeling down?
Maybe if we could see the heart of another, we wouldn't be so quick to pass judgment.
I might be more inclined to offer a grieved stranger with a heart of blue some comfort.
Or, I might be more likely to walk up to a perfect stranger on the street
with a heart of purple, and offer assistance. The store clerk that snapped
at you would have a heart of red if she was feeling upset about something.
Maybe you could offer some kind words to bring her a little joy.
Maybe you could leave a little more money for the tired and worried
waitress with a heart of purple who waited on your table.
I think we would also be able to help our children understand their emotions
better if we could see just how they were feeling. And, maybe we wouldn't
disappoint them so often because we would see how it grieved their heart.
But, we would also be able to see when their joy and happiness
truly shone through.
I admit, I am jealous that God can see our emotions and read our hearts
and we cannot. Or, maybe it's good that we cannot see them. Maybe it
wouldn't be as pretty as I'd like to think. Maybe, we would see primarily
black or gray from all the sin that we commit.
Either way, God did not give to us what I would consider to be an awesome thing.
So, for now, we must continue to navigate the feelings and emotions
of others with care and caution. We must not judge another.
Jesus did not come here to judge us, so why would we do so to each other?
We'll all be judged one day. And, the Bible tells us that we will be judged
as we judged others. So, though not always easy, we should simply love and forgive.
You just cannot go wrong with that!
If you're interested in learning more about generosity and gratitude, check out the
book called, One Simple Act: Discovering the Power of Generosity by Debbie Macomber.
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