I confess that I judge people. There I said it. I do look at folks around me and make assumptions about what is going on in their lives. My judgements are all wrong, and when I am in my right mind I realize that. The older I have gotten, the more I have seen that my perception of any situation, even the ones I am intimately involved in is ridiculously limited. When I live by that kind of sight I get things all wrong. Life is extremely complicated, and every person is complicated, and the more you get those complicated people in contact with each other the more complex the whole thing gets. That is where faith really hits the road. One of the biggest acts of faith, is faith that God judges all things correctly and I don't. Which, more often than not, means that when someone else is judging my situation and they are getting it all wrong, I need faith to submit myself to God and be judged wrongly by my neighbor. When I remember this and walk in it, it gives me a lot more grace when I start looking at someone else's situation. I know how off things can look, and I can keep in mind that it is probably me that is off and not them.
Living in relationship with other people is a crazy moving mess. God tells us to confront people in their sin, but he also says that love covers a multitude of sins. What's up with that? I try to choose the way of letting love cover it. My current operating policy is to pull my own weeds first, before I start digging into my neighbor's garden. I need to get tough on my own sins before I presume to have any knowledge of anyone else's. If I think I am entering into a friend's thistle patch, I try to do two things. First, I pray for God to give me clear vision to know if this is their thistle or maybe it's mine. Second, I pray for God to show me if this is a weed I need to pull, or if there is someone else that is better equipped for the job. I have had several times where I have been praying about an issue with a friend, when they call and tell me that someone has brought a situation to their attention and they want to know what I think. I am so thankful for these opportunities to thank God and confirm that their friend is right and we can work on this together. This can only happen if we are willing to get close to other people.
Our nature is to pull away from people when we are hurting. We want to sneak into a quiet corner and work it out by ourselves. What we need is someone who is willing to listen while we sort out what is going on in our lives. We need someone to pray for us. We need to be encouraged that we are not alone. God created us to be in intimate relationship with him, and with our neighbors. We need friends who are willing to get involved in our lives and get dirty with us. Life is messy. All of us have messes, hurts, frustrations, hopes, loneliness, it is what makes us human. When we look at others and judge them to be perfect we are judging them wrongly. Even the well dressed, well mannered folks sitting in the front row at church have weakness in their lives, they are just better about being discreet than some of us. I am often surprised when I talk to people who I had assumed were doing just fine, only to find out they felt very alone. I had judged them wrongly, and I missed an opportunity to be an encouragement. It is very hard to reach out to others when we feel weak and lonely. We want others to be able to see us without being asked. That's a tricky spot. Finding the hurting without stepping on toes. Often it is better to just step on the toes and ask for forgiveness. We don't want to butt in, so we let the person suffer instead. Relationships are messy. We will say stupid things, it's OK. We will look silly sometimes, so what? It is better to look foolish for the sake of loving someone, than to look all put together and feel hollow. Take the risk. Say hello to to the person who looks like they don't want to talk. Ask someone how things are going, and then really listen. When someone asks you how you are doing, be real. Give some random person a hug. People need contact.
The best thing I did yesterday was to take a bike ride with a friend. I'm a little sore today, and was really sweaty yesterday, but it was good to chat. Some of my friends I don't see all that often due to schedules or geography, but they are always in my prayers. Facebook can be a weird way to stay in touch, but you have to use what God gives you. If you feel like you don't have friends, you have to ask yourself why. It is not easy for everyone to make friends, believe me, I know. Sometimes you just need to take a deep breath and reach out. Sometimes God brings people that will just scoop you up into their social circle, but sometimes you have to do the hard work of extending a hand. Pray, look up, smile, assume that they are at least as messy as you are, and be willing to say something really stupid. The best friends are the ones that let love cover a multitude of your sins and love you anyway. I am eternally grateful for the friends that I have had since kindergarten, who really can judge me. The friends who have walked through hard times with me, and aren't embarrassed to sit by me still. The friends who have to occasionally tell me that I need to apologize for my wrong judgement. The friends who pray for me that I don't even know about. Friends will judge you from time to time, but faithful are those wounds, and faithful is the God who heals them.
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