If we judge another person for one instance of sin or weakness, we may in truth be judging and condemning ourselves. Before we pass judgment on others, let us try to know them better. Maybe we’d realize that we were not so different from them after all.
If you judge people, you have no time to love them. – Mother Teresa
Therefore be merciful, even as your Father is also merciful. Don’t judge, and you won’t be judged. Don’t condemn, and you won’t be condemned. Set free, and you will be set free. – Luke 6, WEB
We become judgmental whenever we fail to realize that we may just be one fatal step away from those we look down upon. Are we really that far away from the darkness we dread? Can we really be so secure where we stand that we won’t find ourselves falling the next moment or so?
May we remember that it is only God’s grace that is able to uphold us every moment of our lives. It is not our mere human strength or our personality. It is not our intelligence or temperament. It is not the wisdom we thought we have acquired on our own.
One wrong decision can turn our lives around in such a way that we become the very people we despise. One false step can open up our vulnerability for others to take advantage of.
Not that our lives must be ruled by fear or that we lose hope when we fall. But that we must be more compassionate with those who have fallen, thinking it could have been us in their place. We could have been the ones in darkness, needing as much help as we could get to be brought back into the light.
For who makes you different? And what do you have that you didn’t receive? But if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it? – 1 Cor. 4, WEB
Check Jocelyn's books:
"Of Waves and Butterflies: Poems on Grief", "Mend My Broken Heart", "Questions to God", "To Love an Invisible God", "Defending My Catholic Faith", and more - click here.
(You may freely quote excerpts from this website as long as due credit is given to author Jocelyn Soriano and the website itakeoffthemask.com)