“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.”
Matthew 7:1-2 (NIV)
I couldn’t take my eyes off the boy two tables over from me. “How could his parents let him keep doing that?” I wondered. He was probably 10 or 11 years old, with blue eyes, freckles scattered across a turned-up nose, and dark brown hair that hung down across his eyes and brushed against his shoulders. But it wasn’t his features that caught my eye . . . it was what he was doing with them!
Every few seconds, he would flip his hair out of his eyes with a right-to-left jerking motion of his head, look up and down, and then curl his upper lip until it met the bottom of his nose. Then he would repeat the entire process again and again . . . and again.
Unfortunately, my thoughts continued: “If he were MY son, I would know how to take care of that behavior! How embarrassing!” I might as well be honest here. That thought was probably the nicest one that I had concerning the young man. And let me add something else: I did not have any children yet. My knowledge of raising kids could have filled one-fourth of a 3x5 index card.
The next morning, the alarm buzzed, and I jumped out of bed to get ready for work as usual . . . but God had another plan for me, and it was a big one: I had a twitch just above my right eye - and not just any twitch. It caused the outer half of my eyebrow to jump upward while my upper eyelid winked at that exact second. Go ahead. I know you are dying to try to make your eyebrow do that, but I’m betting you can’t because normally, just the outer half of your eyebrow is unable to shoot upward. There’s no way that I could intentionally do that myself, nor would I want to.
The annoying eyebrow/eyelid dance did not quit but seemed to gain rhythm and bounce with every twitch. My mind immediately went back to the evening before and the boy with his twitching, jerking problem. “Okay, Lord,” I prayed. “I get it. I shouldn’t have judged that poor boy. Maybe he had something wrong with him. Maybe he was stressed. Whatever it was, I had no right to act like I was superior to him or his parents in any way. Thank you for teaching me this lesson. Forgive me. Amen.” And do you know what happened next?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The eyebrow continued to move and groove as the eyelid winked again and again and again. Sound familiar? Uh huh. Oh, I knew that my Father, in His mercy and grace, forgave me for my unchristian thoughts and judgment of that young boy. But I was also equally certain that He wanted me to learn a lesson from my actions, and He was right.
No matter where I went, the twitching never ceased. People would stop in mid-conversation and stare at me as if I had a contagious disease. I walked by two women at the supermarket who could barely contain their laughter as I went by. “Whoa! Did you see that?” “Yes, I did. She could be on that Stranger than Fiction show on TV with that twitch!”
Six weeks later - you read it right - SIX weeks later, the Zumba twitching eyebrow/eyelid dance suddenly disappeared and with it my judging, arrogant attitude.
We are commanded in Colossians 3:12 (NIV) “as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved” to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Why? So we can become more Christ-like in our walk with Him. So people will know without a doubt Who our Father is and Who we serve. So people will want to know more about Jesus.
I had replaced compassion with condemnation and kindness with cruelty. And my Father, because He loves me and desires so much more for my life, allowed me to experience first-hand that same condemnation and cruelty in order for me to truly understand gentleness and humility that can only come from a right relationship with Jesus. Lesson learned, Father. Lesson learned.
Father, forgive me for judging those around me, and thank you for your reminder that as a Christian, I need to follow your example. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
R.A.P. it up . . .
Reflect
Think about a time that you felt that you could handle a situation more than the people involved.
Were your actions/thoughts Christ-like, or were they condemning?
Apply
Name one way you can turn condemnation into compassion with a situation that you are aware of in your church family.
Put yourself in place of that person mentioned above and describe how you would feel if judged or condemned.
Power
Matthew 7:1-2 (NIV) “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.”
Galatians 2:6 (NIV) “…God does not judge by external appearance…”
Colossians 3:12 (NIV) “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
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