“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:77
“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” Matthew 7:3-5
I don’t remember too much about my college days other than long hair and VW bugs. But there are a few bits of wisdom I did pick up. One professor, while talking about how we view other people, made a statement that we tend to view other people in relationship to ourselves. For example, we might think that a person is tall, compared to me. We might say a person is smart, compared to me. Or that a person’s hair is ugly, compared to me. Subconsciously we tend to use ourselves, our physical selves, our cultural or background selves or our emotional selves as the measuring stick to evaluate everybody else. We might notice skin color, hairstyle, lifestyle, sex, or a whole variety of things and view them as compared to us. Of course I would never want to admit it, but I think deep down it’s probably true. Another wrinkle here is, because we are all separate and unique people, our measuring sticks are all different, and you are, of course, comparing me to your measuring stick and I’m sure in many ways I don’t measure up.
As I ponder this, I realize how easy it is to make faulty judgments. In addition to how we view/judge others is how we see the world. I once knew a girl who thought that trees looked like big lollypops until she was about 9 years old and got glasses. That was when she saw that trees had leaves. What if we couldn’t see, how could we see what race someone was or evaluate their tattoos? How are we supposed to judge people and know who to like or who to hate? How do I know that I am right and who is wrong?
The answer is that as humans we all live with a log in our eye, so to speak, and need to keep that in mind when we see a speck in a brother or sister’s eye. My judgement of someone is no better than their judgement of me. I need to remember that it is Christ who sees things clearly and trust that He sees and knows each of us and loves us anyway.