My husband Wade and I are going through the series Love & Respect with our young married group. Emerson Eggerichs told a story about a man that got onto a crowded bus with his three children. It was an overnight trip and as people were trying to sleep these kids were running wild in the bus and the father just stared out the window, seemingly oblivious. The other passengers were getting quite irritated and starting to make snap judgments like this man is a terrible parent, if these were my kids etc. They elected one man to speak to this father about getting his unruly children under control. The man called to the other a couple times before he responded. ‘Sir, you need to settle your children down. ‘He said.
The other man responded,’ I am so sorry, sorry, we just came from the hospital, my wife just died and the children just lost their mother.’
He said in that split second, nothing changed but everything changed. All that was given was a piece of information and it changed the whole perception of what the bigger picture was of this family.
How many times I have been guilty of snap judgments. I am sure there was many times that if I had just gotten one piece of information, my perception would have changed. Dr. James Richards says in his book. How to Stop the Pain, ‘Identifying what someone did is not judgment; that is merely observation. It is when we assume to know why a person did what he did that we have entered into judgment.’
Judgment means according to one definition in dictionary.com the forming of an opinion, estimate, notion, or conclusion, as from circumstances presented to the mind
Do you think the people on the bus stopped to consider that there was something wrong with the man? I am finding more and more that when I judge the people around me, it is often a reflection of the ugliness in my own heart. They are like a mirror revealing to me something in my heart that God wants to deal with. I know that it is conviction about my behaviour and not condemnation that I am experiencing. When I learn of these things I want to turn to God and let Him change me from the inside out. There was a time when I was less convicted of my position as a child of God that I would take these revelations and beat myself up with them.
I don’t know about you but the more God reveals my heart, the less inclined I am to trust my own opinions. As my friend once commented,’ It is so amazing to me the things in myself that I am blinded to.’
That is another place of God’s grace; He does not reveal everything I need to deal with all at once. He gives me the chance to take a look as he shows me what is within my heart. I still need to choose if I am humble enough to let Him do the work. There is no limit to the opportunities God presents to make me more like Him.
Jeremiah 17:9, 10 ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.’
How are you forming your opinions of others? What is in your heart that you see in others? I encourage you to examine the things you say throughout the day. What is reflected in your thoughts?
Lord thank you for the endless opportunities to change the things within me. Thank you for the insight to see you mean it for my good. Help me to look past my ‘snap judgments’ and obtain more information to change my perception. I want to humbly accept your invitations to change me from within.
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