| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 18 |
Page 6 |
There are many Divine counsels against judging others. One reason we should not do it is that our knowledge of others lives must always be only partial at the best, and very imperfect. We see only “through a glass darkly.” We see only fragments, and it never is fair to judge from fragments. We see only one side, and we condemn the act or the character, while perhaps the other side is lovely. If we saw that, our condemnation would change to praise.
Another reason why we should not judge others is because nothing is as yet finished. An artist complains if you criticize his picture before he has completed his work on it. Until that time he keeps it veiled. God is an artist. He is working on men’s lives in this world, but nothing is finished here. “It doth not yet appear what we shall be.” The work is still uncompleted. By and by the veil will be drawn, and then we shall see the finished work in the lives which in their incompleteness seem so faulty. “We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him.” We should never judge God’s unfinished work in men’s lives.
This teaches us that we should be very patient with each other’s life. Too often a misunderstanding arises through only partial knowledge. We see it sometimes in families. For want of wise, loving patience, alienations occur, and lives which ought to be one in sympathy, affection, and interest, are held apart. We have all seen such estrangements, beginning with a seeming trifle, yet becoming so complete that two lives, dwelling under the same roof touching each other continually and closely in the contacts of daily association, have grown miles and miles apart in heart, in spirit, in all that concerns real and true living.
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