Things Are Not Always What They Seem by Lisa Burkhardt Worley

I stepped foot on the Georgetown University campus for the first time ever yesterday and realized two things. Georgetown was actually in Washington, D.C. I thought it was in a suburb just outside Washington, D.C., and second, the campus was smaller than I expected. After this, I realized that we can often have something in our minds for decades that is incorrect.

This principle applies to how we view people. We can believe they are thinking one way, but we find out later it was not their thought at all. We size someone up and assign a personality to them without really getting to know them. We can make a judgement call about a person that we later discover is wrong. Things are not always what they seem.

Luke 6:37 says, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”

In Romans 2:1 Paul states, “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.”

The only One who knows what is in the hearts of men or women is God. When we begin to analyze or judge a person without a lot of data, it is unfair to the individual.

I am not pointing the finger at anyone because I am guilty! I am analytical by nature, but know I need to work on this part of my personality. Instead, I want to save this attribute for my writing, not the people I encounter. Why don’t we work on this together? Let’s ask the LORD to help us perceive the created through His eyes, not our own imperfect, human eyes. All He really calls us to do on this Earth is to love Him, and love our neighbor. If we stick to that, then we will never assign a false label to anyone again.