••••••• INSPIRATIONAL THOUGHTS •••••••

On Being Judgmental

I hate this about me. I am a judgmental person. In spite of the fact that both Jesus and Paul command us to not judge—“determine another person’s sentence” - Matthew 7 and Romans 2—I am very quick to judge others. I hate this about me.

I judge people who aren’t like me, and who do things that I don’t do. I judge people who struggle with things I don’t struggle with. More than once, Jesus has convicted me about this and I’ve had to humbly repent of my hypocrisy.

Here’s an example. For a long time I was very judgmental towards obese people. I’ve never really struggled too much with weight issues, so I found it really easy to determine that obese people were careless, lazy, and inferior—until that fateful February day a few years ago.

I was getting out of my car in the parking garage of the Colorado Convention Center, heading into a workshop I’d registered for called, “Pastor’s as Shepherds, Loving Your Sheep.” I noticed just to my left a large woman getting out of her car. She was very obese. As she tugged at her clothing and struggled with each step toward the building, I whisked past her thinking terrible thoughts about how fat she was and how she could possibly let herself become so disgustingly overweight.

Finding the workshop room and seated comfortably waiting for it to begin, I sensed behind me a large presence coming through the door. I turned to see it was the obese woman from the parking lot. “What is she doing in this workshop?” I thought. Not wanting her to sit next to me, I put my bible on the seat to my left. She walked past my row, past the other rows, stopped at the front of the room and sat down in a chair facing the workshop participants.

Just then the workshop leader came in, a pastor I admired and looked forward to hearing from about Pastors loving their congregations. He welcomed us from the podium and after a brief prayer he introduced his friend Linda. Linda, the obese woman, rose and began with these words, “I know many of you are looking at me with disgust. I’m used to that. Some of you are thinking thoughts about me and my size that, if they were spoken, would be cruel, judgmental, and even hateful.” I felt like she was talking only to me.

She then went on to tell her story. Repeatedly raped and abused by an uncle starting at age ten. She was never believed when she tried to tell her parents. Terrified of what would happen if she spoke out. She said she made a decision at 15 that she’d never be hurt and abused again. Her defense? Weight. She intentionally became obese to make herself unattractive, to protect herself from any further abuse.

We were riveted to her story. She ended by saying, “Pastors, you do not know what’s in the heart of a person. Please, don’t judge people who aren’t like you. There’s more to us than what you see. We, the obese, the tattooed, the addicted, the marginalized, need a shepherd too.”

I left that workshop changed. It was there that Jesus convicted me of my sin of judging obese people. I repented and asked God to forgive me and replace my judging heart with a heart of compassion and care. I asked Linda to forgive me, too.

I still struggle with being judgmental, but not so much towards obese people. Now, it’s those people at the grocery store holding up the entire checkout line while they make out their check at the speed of petrifying wood that I’m working on. Ugh, the work of spiritual growth.

-Read past thoughts-