The Art of the Judgmental

I start this post with a heavy heart.  The people who prescribe to the most loving of attitudes are often those with the most judgmental of hearts.  They talk of lovely things such as forgiveness and seeing the best in others, but when it comes to the lowly of spirit, the idolaters, the sexually promiscuous, the drunkards, the revelers, and the jobless, the story changes.  Then it becomes "those people," and they are spoken of as if they have a horrid disease contractable by simply breathing the same air.  It's as if these people are unredeemable and should be spoken poorly of and pushed to the side as rubbish.  Wake up!  These people are diseased!  They are in dire need of a Savior, Someone who can fulfill them in the ways that their sins cannot.  They need the Great Physician, and we hold the information to lead them there.  These are the people that the world holds in its vice-grip, blinding them and strangling them, forcing them to breathe the poisoned air of immorality and darkness.  They don't know or care to know that there is Something and Someone greater just beyond that deceitfully comforting haze of sin.

In Ireland in the mid-1800's, there was a group of young women referred to as "shawlies" because they were too poor to afford the hats that graced the heads of the proper women-folk of the day.  They lived in the slums, and were not sheltered in the way that proper ladies were.  Rather, they were privy to the conversations  and happenings of the railway workers, and were therefore looked upon as soiled and dirty.  Amy Carmichael, as a young lady, was interested in the souls of such precious women.  She knew that she was sheltered and that they were not.  Instead of following the order of the the proper, she ventured into the slums to fetch the shawlies, a deplorable act in her circumstance.  But Amy, following the call of God, "was more than ready to take risks for the sake of others," as recorded by Elisabeth Elliot in her biography titled A Chance to Die (I've spoken of this book already...I would recommend the read!).  She wondered what sort of life they led and implored her older brother as to what sort of conversation the shawlies must hear.  He wasn't sure that she should know, but he shared a few things once Amy proved she wouldn't be put off.  And do you know what Amy did?  She didn't pull back in revulsion and throw on a judgmental attitude toward the girls.  "She intensified her prayers that the girls would grow up pure and good."

Amy continued to work with these women and built up a ministry centered on them, all the while knowing that she must do more, more, more for the Kingdom.  How can we possibly choose a different route than that?  How is  it that we see ourselves as better than anyone else?  We all have the capacity for every sin, and yet we regard those who choose that path as something lesser than we are, simply because our gracious God has had mercy upon our souls and we have (only with His power) taken up that banner.  Instead of following in the heavy trodden path of judgment, I implore you to choose love.  Love the unloveable.  Love them in all that they are.  Do not love their sin, but love them deeply, with the same love extended to you by your Father in Heaven.  Love them right out of their sin, because love in its pure form is the strongest bond that binds and the truest form selflessness.  Look at those who are choosing to coat themselves in the filth of sin and pray and love and hope and know that the same Lord that chose to love you loves them just the same.