Stop judging, that you may not be judged.
For as you judge, so will you be judged,
and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.
We are called to always assume the best about others. But we aren't very good at it. On the road, in the grocery store, and at work we are all too ready to attribute other people's failures to malice while we excuse ourselves for being only human. We notice in others the faults we all too readily excuse in ourselves. Even with those faults which we are working on correcting in ourselves we become so well attuned to seeing that we're all too ready to see them in others. Seeing them in others quickly becomes easier than recognizing them in ourselves. We don't even need to consider the faults of others unless it makes some difference to how we act toward them. The world does not benefit from our well thought through considerations of why the people around us are wrong. In fact, all that does is make the world more judgmental in turn.
When the LORD calls us to follow him it is without reference to what those around us are doing. Investing in judgment is implicitly stating that our opinion should matter to others. The converse which inevitably becomes true is that their opinions matter to us as well. We have become trapped in a whole ecosystem of what people think. Instead, we only need care what the LORD thinks, what he says, and to where he calls us.
"Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk
and from your father's house to a land that I will show you.
"I will make of you a great nation,
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you
and curse those who curse you.
All the communities of the earth
shall find blessing in you."
We can't follow this call when we are too concerned about the plank in our neighbors eye. The plank in our own eye will definitely be an issue, but only because we need to see the road in front of us, the road which God is calling us to walk. Fortunately he has given us a healing balm in his Church to transform our faults into his own righteousness.
Our soul waits for the LORD,
who is our help and our shield.
May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us
who have put our hope in you.
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