Daily Devo w/ Pastor Eric September 7, 2021
How Do I Judge Myself by Judging Others?
Matthew 7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be
judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the
measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
It took me most of my lifetime to
feel like I really got what Jesus was saying here. I get the core message, “don’t judge.” After all, I don’t like to be judged, so it
makes sense that I shouldn’t do that to others.
It’s a Golden Rule sort of thing.
But how is it that I am judged when I judge others. That’s what I couldn’t get through my thick
skull. I heard lots and lots of
explanations, but it took personal experience to break through my
ignorance. It wasn’t just one
experience. But over time, I began to
see something that I had never seen before.
My explanatory abilities often fail me when I try to describe it, but
I’ll try once again.
Whenever, I make a judgement about
something, I, consciously or unconsciously, am using some kind of measure or
standard. When I want to make a
judgement about how long something is, I use a tape measure or ruler. I might, using my ruler, make a judgement
that the plank I am measuring is 11 inches long. I double check my measurement and yes, it is
indeed an 11-inch long plank.
I made a subtle shift in that last
sentence. I went from taking one single
measurement to labeling something based on that measurement. The plank might protest:
“Sure, I am around 11 inches long, but have you considered
my width, my height, my density, my color,
the kind of wood I’m made of, the fact that I float, and about a dozen
other things that I am other than being 11 inches long? I am way more than an 11-inch long
plank! See me! Don’t judge me!”
It’s an absurd example, but we do this to each other when we
make judgements. We reduce others to
labels taken with incomplete measurements.
It gets worse. There’s something else.
What about my ruler? Is it
perfectly precise? My ruler only shows measures down to an 1/8 of an inch. So when I made my measurement, was the plank
exactly 11 inches long? If the truth was
that the plank was that it was 10 and 31/32 inches long, how could I know with
my imperfect measuring device? Here’s
the sad truth; they’re all imperfect measuring devices. You may protest at this point. You might say, “but 11 inches is close enough.” But how do you like being defined by others
using a “close enough” measurement?
Sometimes I really don’t care, but sometimes that imprecise definition
really hurts.
I want you to notice something
else. By trusting my imprecise ruler to
make a judgement about the poor unsuspecting plank, I have already consented to
having that same imprecise implement being used to make judgements about me. I
might have already done it. I’m 6’2 and
a half, but is it really a half, or is it nine-sixteenths? I’ve said that it is an adequate tool for
making judgements. If it’s adequate for
making judgements about the plank, then it’s adequate for making judgements
about me.
Every judgement I’ve ever made
about someone, I’ve done so with imprecise “measuring tools.” I also have made those judgements based on an
incomplete number of measuring tools. I
could never take enough different “measurements” of someone to say, “okay, now
I can judge with certainty who you are.”
All my measuring implements are imperfect and I can never have enough of
them. I have to conclude that I will
never be equipped to judge someone. I’m
going to have to leave that to God who does indeed has all the perfect tools to
do the judging. The good news in that is
that when I admit that I am unqualified to judge others, I am also admitting
that I am unqualified to judge myself. I
guess I’ll trust that to God as well.
Questions: Is there
someone to whom you’ve assigned a label that does not describe who they really
are? Have you done the same thing to
yourself?
Prayer: God, I
surrender to you my tendency to judge others or even myself. Only you are qualified for the job. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Pray
for victims of mass-shootings across our country and across the globe.
Song: Judge Not
(1992) - Bob Marley & The Wailers
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