With the same measure...

Let me begin with a question.  Do you ever just try to deny who you really are, or is that just a phenomenon I am really good at? 

I spend so much of my life trying to convince myself that there are better ways to spend time with the Lord or connect intimately with Him than the ways that are actually most obviously intimate to me.  Crazy, right?  Well, one of the ways that I connect intimately with God has always been through writing.  For a long time, I kept a prayer journal.  I also updated this blog (and others past) more frequently.  Pouring out my heart or putting our Lord's conviction on paper always cemented something for me.  Made things more tangible, maybe.  I need to accept that I am made that way- and start returning to those avenues of intimacy.

In that spirit I share about my reading today.  Matthew 7:1-2 hit me like a ton of bricks.  I've heard these verses misrepresented and out of context so many times that I've ignored them altogether.  "Do not judge or you too will be judged.  For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged and with the same measure you use, it will be measured to you."  Oh my.

Moment of confession:  I am judgmental.  Not the kind of judgmental often misrepresented that claims we are not supposed to have one true standard of right and wrong and judge actions as being moral or immoral.  The kind of judgmental the passage actually speaks to- condemning. 

When I read this passage today, a scene flashed across my mind.  I was at work a couple of weeks ago taking care of a number of patients who were detoxing from alcohol/drug binges.  They were having tremors, seeing hallucinations and hearing voices, and pulling at their IVs in constant agitation.  And in my heart, I condemned them. 

    "they deserve this because they keep making such poor choices..."
    "frequent flyers... when will these people get help?"
    "I hate taking care of these kind of patients.  Wasn't there someone else who could take them?"
    "What is the point of this?  They'll be back in two weeks anyway."

I placed myself on a pedestal, far above the muck of sin that had entangled "people like that."  Of course I never would have put it that way.  That sounds unholy.  I would have said something like, "They need Jesus.  Without Him, they have no power to escape these addictions."  And that statement would have been true.  It also would have been glowing with pharasaic holiness, all the while what I really felt deep down was ugly disdain and condemnation. 

Did I care for these patients well?  It depends who defines "well."  I met their physical needs.  I gave them their medications on time.  My boss may have been satisfied.  But did I love them?  No.  Did I touch them with the kindness that Christ would have?  Certainly not.  Did my eyes glean with compassion for their sinful state that was so perfectly like the battle that rages daily in my flesh?  No.  Did I pray for them to escape the snare of satan even as I plead for myself?  Unfortunately not. 

My own measure is not the one I want used to measure me.  Father, forgive this hypocrite for the plank in her eye and the specks she constantly finds and condemns in the eyes of others. 

"If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting 'Who made thee to differ? And what hast thou that thou hast not received?' then I know nothing of Calvary love."   -Amy Carmichael