“Who are you to judge the life I live? I know
I’m not perfect—and I don’t live to be—but before you start pointing fingers...
make sure your hands are clean.”
—Bob Marley
Read Bob Marley’s quote above,
especially as a Christian, and a flurry of thought ensues. Jesus hated how the
Pharisee would instinctually point the finger, but then again he points us to
the cross—to live the best we can live; the best we can live in following after
the will of God as much as possible.
But we will never be perfect;
having no aspiration for perfection is a healthy outlook.
But many of us seek things
unsustainable and unattainable. Maybe when we do this we transfer our
unhappiness, in striving for perfection, onto others who are perfectly happy
(as much as they can be) in their imperfection.
Who Defines How Life Is to Be Lived?
Apart from the Gospel and other
things we might take in that could help, God has issued us with free will; to
determine the life we will lead.
And although we will be held to
perfect account regarding how we lived our lives, we alone have the glorious
honour to discharge our lives as we see fit. (This is one reason for the Holy Spirit—to guide us to
better outcomes where we would otherwise more often fail.)
Recently I listened to talkback
where parentless couples found themselves, in social situations, forced to
defend the decision not to have children. It appears society has expectations of couples. There are many such expectations
that remove a person’s dignity to the choice God has given them.
Isn’t it funny, in a less humorous
way, but what God gives, we judge?
God gives the light of life and
human beings dim that light through their filthy filters for how life should be
lived. And little do they know where these judgments come from. If they knew
they wouldn’t cling to them. When we have certain societal expectations, as we
stereotype people, there is a direct reflection regarding how we think in life,
and even as we think about ourselves.
Expectations on others reveal the
expectations we have of ourselves that we can’t live up to.
Yet, the strongest temptation is
for the Christian to judge; we seem to ‘own’ the moral high ground, after all.
Well, that is what most people think. The truth couldn’t be further from the truth.
We know, through what Jesus did on the cross, that we are in the moral low ground—and our sinfulness should simply remind us of
the challenges we all face and our need of God. Life is not easy for anyone.
***
It is a blessing to others, and it
pleases God, when we reject the temptation to stereotype people into boxes; to
limit people through our judgments regarding how they live their lives.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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