Day 302: Luke 4, 5 and 6

Do not judge, and you will not be judged (Luke 6:37).

I can slap a label on people within minutes of meeting them. You know; the whole first impressions thing. And once I label them, there ends the discussion. There is no question as to their intentions or character. Everything I need to know can be answered by looking at that label – the label I put there.

Sometimes the problem is our lenses. We talk about looking at the world through rose-colored glasses – seeing things better than they really are. My eyes don’t focus the way they used to, so I wear corrective lenses… reading glasses. They help correct the distorted image my aging eyes see so I can read the words on the page.

Not all lenses are corrective; not all lenses are rose-colored. Sometimes our lenses confirm our prejudices. If we see people as out to get us, everything they do will seem suspect. If we see someone as a bigot, everything he says will seem prejudiced. See someone else as dishonest and everything she says will be filtered for possible deceit. Those are heavy loads to impose on people, no matter who they are.

We put people in boxes that too often determine their shape. That’s not fair. It’s not right to subject individuals to our preconceived ideas about them. They start out with a negative balance and find it difficult if not impossible to ever break even.

TODAY’S MEDITATION

Whom do you need to let out of a box? Ask your Father to help you view others with mercy and grace rather than judgment.