So as a good person, you want to live a godly, fulfilling
and productive life in the midst of (or in spite of) a world of imperfection
and injustice. Sometimes it seems
impossible, right? If you’re like me,
frustration and disappointment seem to be a greater part of my experiences than
I would like them to be. For example,
how do we reconcile, or “live in harmony” with someone who wants nothing of
it. Or how do you work as a team when
one or more of the so-called team members are
controlling or even a bit manipulative? Or maybe your own limitations or failures are holding you back
from accomplishing greater things.
Whether or not other people change, we can experience the peace and rest of God that
our heart longs for.
In order for you to be more tolerant with yourself and
others, it is essential for you to understand a human being’s thirst for
justice and the “will to judge.”
The English word “judge” can mean many things across a spectrum of “good”
judging and “bad” judging. Good judging
may include rightly perceiving,
discerning, and discriminating. “Bad” judging is unfair criticizing,
pre-judging, misjudging, demeaning, and condemning. Communication via language can be very difficult, but with this
word "judge," it can be especially
difficult to determine
meaning. For example, the
word discrimination. Discrimination is a word of "good"
judgment, hijacked in recent years to be widely associated with
unfairness. In other languages, the
problem is the same (like the Greek of Bible translations). Understanding our problems of
"bad" judging requires much more than intellect and reason. It must include searching the inner heart of
our own being.
Desire for justice is an innate part of our being. Unfortunately, since the moment sin entered
the human race through Adam and Eve, our default mode of judging is “bad”
judging. When man chose to give up
existing solely on the “tree of life,” he chose “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Judging (in the sense of knowing good from
evil) was not originally meant for human practice. Only God is the ultimate Judge.
God's laws (ways of operating) are supreme. Therefore, any judgment a person makes, (even a “good” judgment),
is subject to re-interpretation by a higher power. Only God can satisfy our ultimate desire for justice. God is a God of perfect justice and perfect
mercy.
So, although God did not design and desire man to carry
the burden of judgment, the problem is that man wills to be his own Judge. Our human nature does not want to accept God
as Judge. However, God is Judge, Jury,
and Executioner. He makes judgments, is
not subject to anyone else’s interpretation, and acts as He wills on His
judgments. Our rebellion against this
authority is sin.
One more problem makes the human condition inescapable
without Christ as Refuge. Shame and
judgment work together to condemn our personhood. Shame tells us we are not worthy to be the sons and daughters God
created us to be (which is a lie). We
confuse shame (who I am) with guilt (what I do) to condemningly judge ourselves
unworthy.
This rebellion and
shame is so rooted in our nature we accept it as a fact of life. It shows up in the earliest days of
childhood. Babies have legitimate needs
and cry when they are hungry or uncomfortable.
But they sometimes scream in
anger for no apparent reason. Toddlers
sometimes through tantrums simply to demand their way. Children do not have to be taught how to
disobey, steal, manipulate, and the like.
The broken world in which we live imposes hurtful experiences causing
perceived wounds and reactions ("bad" roots) of bitterness,
resentment, blaming, and justifying.
Reactions turn into learned patterns of behavior forming who we are on
the inside. It is important to
recognize, what goes wrong in our life is not because of the bad things others
have done to us, but because of our bitter reactions to them.
We also do not have ability to recognize this poor condition.
Each person is blind (for the most part) to their own bitter reactions,
wounding, and critically judging. Our
heart could be compared to a vegetable garden with good plants and weeds
growing together. The soil feeds the
roots of both good plants and bad. The
good plants try to bring forth fruit in keeping with what they were designed to
produce, unaware of the weeds stealing nourishment and limiting their ability
to produce. God as the Gardener of our
heart is the only one who can solve the problem by providing a means for taking
care of the weed problem.
No garden will ever be completely free of weeds. Even after a good weed pulling session,
seeds are in the soil that will eventually produce more weeds. The seeds of sin are with us as long as we
live. Its an unending problem and just part of natural laws. So too our hearts produce weeds as part of
our natural existence. The nicest, most good-hearted, loving person carries the
same seed as the most inconsiderate, unloving, or abusive person. Even unrecognized or unacknowledged bad
behaviors (rooted in bad judging) will
grow into unmanageable weeds.
Only the Gardener can take care of the weeds.
Jesus is the Gift God
provided to make things right in our heart.
The miracle cannot be finished with one weed pulling session. It takes a lifetime of pulling weeks. This is called transformation and
sanctification.
The greatest enemy in the garden of the heart is the will
to critically judge. Our deep desire
for justice becomes an excuse for condemning ourselves and other people for who
they are instead of merely for their actions.
We explain away many condemning judgments on a daily basis. For example, when you think or verbalize the
following with a person or persons closest to you in relationship. "I told you a million times not to do ____
(whatever annoys you )______ , but you keep being a jerk about it." Or, "You really don't love me when you
__________." Or, "I cannot
love you if you keep doing __________ ."
Or, "Drivers on the highway are jerks when they __________
." We accuse and confuse the
guilt of "wrong doing" with the shame of "wrong
being." In God's eyes
(judgment) there is no such thing as
"wrong being." God does not
think of any person as a jerk. So, if
we believe in justice, we cannot think and act that way either.
Again, there is no one exempt from this condition of
humanity. No amount of will power can
correct it. Instead of the "tree
of judging" God wants us to enjoy the "tree of life." Eating fruit from the tree of life means
that our thirst for justice is satisfied by the Judge of all judges, not by our
own self-determination. God judged sin and shame to be taken care of
through the mercy provided by His own Son, Jesus Christ.
Other articles on my blog site explain how to apply this to your life
through forgiveness and surrendering our heart to God. If this way of thinking is new to you, or if
you had a reaction to something I've written above, go back and read it
again. I promise that if you learn to
apply this truth to your life, you will see a huge improvement in your
relationships with people. I would
love to hear from you about how this
has made a difference in your life (either before or after reading this).
Be blessed in the justice of God Almighty!
Note: A book I authored Escaping the Pain of
Offense: Empowered to Forgive from the Heart discusses truth for dealing
with disappointments, offense and finding freedom through forgiveness (from a
Christian perspective). See more about
the book by clicking here: http://bluerockbnb.com/healing/book_main.htm .
by Ed Hersh, Blue Rock BnB Healing Ministry
