Judge Not
What’s so inspirational about criticism?  When it’s informative and gracefully doled out, it can clarify and thusly improve life.  We don’t always like it when it comes because often it comes awkwardly or sometimes even with a touch of mean-spiritedness behind it, but given in the right circumstances from a sensitive giver, it can be a healing balm.

Recently I was the recipient of the latter, a graceful word to the wise.  Let’s hope that I can be wise enough to take it as gracefully as the giver gave it.  In this case the giver was the Missus.

Often criticism comes hardest from those we love the most.  These are just the people we want to admire us without hesitation.  So when they give advice on how to be a better person, then it stings more.  But my wife is a sensitive soul and after all, as the song says, “That’s What Friends Are For”.

It’s only human nature to wonder the nature of the criticism.  So I’ll expose my latest fault here in print with the hope that perhaps by writing it down, I can figure out the solution and perhaps plant the discovery of the problem a little more solidly in my own mind.

Here it is:  I’ve become far too judgmental.  When delicately told this, rather than protesting the criticism, I found myself suddenly growing very quiet and listening intently.  The sting hit home like a ton of bricks because I instantly knew that it was true.  I had been caught and exposed.

It’s a problem that I’ve faced before in life and one that I’ve solved sometimes momentarily by just buttoning the old lip, biting down on the tongue and working moment to moment on an old saying that my mother taught me.  “If you don’t have something positive to say about someone, say nothing.”

I tend to be more judgmental in hard times.  In thinking and praying about the problem I noticed this interesting fact.  These are hard time for me, so it’s come up all too often and before I know it, the tongue loosens and begins flailing away.

This time, I’ve realized, I have to go beyond just shutting up about it.  This time I have to get to the core of the problem.  So I’ve been trying to strip away the erroneous layers of thought that mask the true fault.

One thing for sure:  This penchant to be judgmental does not come from a point of happiness.  I am not judgmental when I’m happy; I get judgmental when I’m frustrated or vindictive or when I’m confused.  Looking at this I noticed an interesting trend.  Judging others negatively was a misguided attempt to make myself look better or smarter or more superior in a given situation.  If I could nail someone else’s problem that meant that I stood above them.

But the bad habit, I found, did not have positive payoff.  It, in fact, rarely made me feel better about myself.  In fact, it often just led to more judgment and began a vicious circle of caustic comments that served no real purpose.

Then the light dawned.  As I looked back at the way I had been talking about all the people that I was closest to and the way that I had been judging them, I realized that at the center of things, I was scared.  I was afraid that the difficulties of my own life were far too overwhelming and so in some confused way decided to climb up on some false pedestal and play judge.

Error, or the devil, is tricky.  It tries to confuse us and keep us from the truth, but because it is error or evil to begin with, it cannot confuse us with truth because it has no concept of truth.  It is ingrediently mistake; false to begin with and erroneous at its core.  So its ammunition is deceit, not the truth.

It makes no sense that out of fear I would choose something false as the panacea, but it is all to often the human solution and error’s solution.

So going forward I plan to look at the urge to be judgmental and try to identify it as immediately as possible as fear.  Then button the lip, but take the process a step further and identify the fear.  Therein lies the real problem

We know that in life once the real problem is identified, often the solution comes quickly because true goodness is just so overwhelmingly powerful.

This is the present plan of action.  Now I have to just work, watch and pray to in every way I can emulate the mind of the master – to love my fellow man.

Hard to love when we’re frightened.  When Jesus hung upon the cross knowing that his life here on planet earth was over, he had a remarkable thought.  He said, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do.”  A lesser man would not have loved so and would have judged more.  But he saw the truth of the moment, overcame his fear and spoke his incredibly selfless thoughts out loud so that all could hear.

If he could do that in his dire situation, can’t I follow his example in far less difficult circumstances?

It is my great hope.

Some of you may have already asked, “Was the Missus being judgmental when she criticized me?”  There is a place for judges in this world.  “Judge Not” does not rule out judgment entirely.  I believe it simply specifies false judgment.  In her case, her judgment about my condition was accurate and simply a clear statement of the truth of my false condition.  Her judging was truth spoken with the desire to heal, not to put down.

I’m going to solve this problem.  Already I feel more on top of it and consequently less fearful.  But as previously mentioned, I must work, watch and pray.

I’ll keep you posted.

For more inspirational music, thought and ideas from Peter Link,
please visit Watchfire Music.