Judge not!

     I am ashamed to admit that there were years in my life when I thought I had all of the answers!  How I managed to be so arrogant in my thinking while maintaining a pretty negative self-esteem, I certainly don't know.  While I am sure I am not alone in  possessing a history of an exaggerated sense of self, I am not eager to have that history repeat itself in my life.  I didn't even hesitate to self-righteously proclaim the scripture from Matthew 7, where Jesus admonished, "Do not judge, or you 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."
     In my mind's eye, the judgmental soul, certainly not me, would stand before Jesus on the judgement day, and be "measured" using the tool with which he "measured" others. While I will not, at this time in my life, claim to know exactly how we will be "measured", I do know what has happened in my life every single time I have had the audacity to judge another person:  I have had to "walk a mile in the moccasins" of each person I have judged.    
     Years before I ever faced chronic illness, I misjudged young, seemingly healthy people who suffered from prolonged colds, recoveries from surgeries or pregnancy, even grief.   I realized the folly of such judgments when I was diagnosed with a series of chronic illnesses, one right after another.  And, as I judged others, I too was judged by people who had not yet suffered from any prolonged bouts of ill health.  As I judged others, so I was judged....the measure I used was used to measure me.
     When I was a young parent, I often wondered, I remember now with a helpless shaking of my head, why it was that I was not asked to speak from the vast store of my acquired wisdom, at seminars on how to parent successfully!  It wasn't until my oldest was a teenager that I first learned how ill-conceived of an idea that was!  It was then that I began to realize how very little I knew on the subject!  Today I could hold an entire weekend seminar and fill it with lectures on how not to parent, based on my own mistakes as a mother!  How tragic and disheartening it is to know that my own children had to suffer the consequences of my self righteous assessment!

        These days I often cringe inwardly when I hear a young parent pronounce judgement on another person's parenting style or character.  I really don't want anyone else to have to learn life's lessons on judgmental behavior the hard way, as I have had to learn.  No one really arrives in this life--not as a parent, not as a Christian, not even in our chosen professions.  There will always be more to learn, more to achieve and inner strength and wisdom to acquire.  And the Source of that wisdom and strength is the Creator of all good and perfect gifts, He who wishes to give true wisdom to His children, if only we ask.  And, sadly, if we are judging others from the position of superiority, then we do not possess the humility to ask.  Judge not....