Judging from a limited perspective is something we humans do with alarming regularity. It starts innocently enough. Parents teaching their children to be clean and orderly tell them to not be messy like so-and-so's kids. The children learn comparisons. You don't want to be like him or her. You want to be well thought of. You want your parents' approval. Most of all, you want their love, and so you learn to make those comparisons. And comparisons are so very tricky, because comparisons invite judgment.
The problem with judgment is that no matter how informed a person may be, their human perspective is limited and therefore incomplete. Uninformed judgment, no matter who it comes from, no matter the intention, will always wound the subject. We know this to be true because we have all experienced it. The casual remark of a friend, the gossip that manages to find its way back, the angry, heated words of a frustrated adversary or, worse, a frustrated lover, all of these words are usually based on a judgment that is inevitably flawed, carving a wound through our soul as if we were jello.
It's not that the words are untrue. If they were, there would be no power in them. It's that only enough of the facts fit to yield a fun-house mirror of our reality, just enough truth to make us look ridiculously incompetent or fabulously uninformed or classically unhinged. Sometimes, were it someone else, we'd be tempted to laugh or cry or dismiss it out of hand. But it's not. It's us. It's personal. And the distorted illusion trumps reality yet again in the quest for the final verdict.
But it's not final. It's not even real, if reality is something that we can truly perceive in these baggy, lumpy, fleshy suits that we call the human body at large. No, and the judgment is not yet rendered by the Judge that counts. That happens when we "shuffle off this mortal coil." We will all find that we are to be judged in a review of our time here. Hebrews says, "It is appointed for man once to die and then the judgment."
How long this review lasts is not clear nor is it a "The state versus John Doe" kind of trial. There are no motions to vacate or objections or depositions. It is a recounting of your life with the God of the Universe and whatever you thought, did, or said is on display. There is no wounding here and there is no comparison. It just is what it says on the box, a judgment.
I don't have my eschatology in final form, nor do I pretend to know what God thinks or what He plans for the end of the age. I do know that this is not the "Valley of decision" judgment where he separates the sheep from the goats of the world--and trust me, you do not want to be reckoned the goat at this award ceremony! Instead, I believe that the end of everyone's life is a natural conclusion for any human and a way for God to personally address all the "what abouts" and "whys" of our lives. I know I will have more than a few whys piled up to review with Him, things that likely are not possible to reckon until the end, when we can see, as Paul writes, "clearly, face to face"
Until then, I have to resist==constantly resist--the temptation to judge others. Because the judgment of others is not something I desire or need. Instead, I need God's help and guidance every day, hour, minute and second. And most of all, I need the grace afforded to me by Jesus and his death on the Cross. The same grace is available to you. You only need lift a finger to take it.☧
