Be Careful How You Judge
There will always be poor people in the land.
Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are
poor and needy in your land. – Deuteronomy 15:11
Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will
also cry out and not be answered. – Proverbs 21:13
She is a good person. A prayer warrior. Someone who is
generous with friends and family. She is quick to smile and devoted to her
church.
She only turns ugly when it comes to the poor. She has
no sympathy or compassion. “They should get a job,” she spews out. “If they
couldn’t afford children, they shouldn’t have had them! I’m not going to
support them.” Need I go on?
This is a woman who went from her Daddy’s house to her
husband’s house. She has never, ever supported herself. Her “work” has been to
sometimes help her husband at their business. Her child is an adult. And, yes,
she hires someone to clean her house.
I’m not faulting her for her life. As I said, she
truly is a wonderful person. But that hard heart!? It sure does dull her
testimony.
Before you fault her or justify her words, take a
moment to consider yourself. We are all a product of our upbringing, our place
of birth, our choices. Our personalities weigh in, with some people weathering
storms with little impact while others are destroyed. Why the differences? Does
anyone but God know?
Have you ever had someone tell you to “get over” something?
Have you ever cried out at the unfairness of heartbreak or job loss or
misdirection? Have you ever begged God for answers, for help, for comfort
during the storm?
We’re not so different, you and I and those we condemn
for their station in life. I doubt they chose to be poor or homeless or
addicted. It doesn’t make them bad people. It doesn’t make them lazy. Some of the
hardest working people I know work more than one job trying to feed their
families and keep a roof over their head. One illness, one extra bill, can send
them on a spiral to financial disaster.
Where is our compassion? Why do we think we somehow have
the right to judge their story when we have walked a different path? Where is
the grace and mercy God has shown us?
I am not excusing those who truly are too lazy to work.
I’m not telling anyone to enable someone in the throws of addiction or bad
decision making. What I am saying is that none of us have the right to judge
someone else’s story.
Watch your words. If it isn’t kind, don’t say it. Be
careful how you judge. Let the world see Jesus in what you say and do.
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