Let God Be the Judge

WE'RE often making judgments about things. In fact, we may even find ourselves making quick judgments about each person we meet. And it's not just people we judge! We judge places and situations and circumstances and job possibilities and so on and on. But most of all, we judge ourselves.

And we're almost never satisfied with what we see about life on the basis of such human judgments. The nature of mortality is to be limited and finite; it shows us a mixture of good and bad, with bad often appearing to win out. There's a way to break free of the limitations associated with human judgments, though. And that's to let God be the Judge. The Bible tells us, in the book of Isaiah: "The Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us. And, referring to God, Ge nesis assures us, "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? There is comfort and healing in understanding these statements more completely. Such understanding can heal sin and sickness. It can free us from self-condemnation or a tendency to condemn others.

The day I glimpsed something of the spiritual meaning of the words "the Lord is our judge was a red-letter day. Sure, I had often read them in the Bible. But it wasn't until I was striving to be free of intense self-condemnation and of the persistent condemnation of a family member that letting God do the judging became important to me. I began to see how my whole life had been permeated with passing judgment on people and situations.

Through a morning of prayer and Bible study, and with the help of a friend who also prayed with me, I was able to give up some of my own judgments in the situations that were immediately troubling to me. But what was perhaps more important, I also began to see that my judgment of any person or circumstance was only accurate to the degree that it reflected God's judgment--to the degree that it was spiritual and good. I began to apply this insight as a guideline in my daily life. I tried to ask myself, "Is

this a personal judgment, or am I responding to what God is knowing? I'm still doing this and have found that on the whole I am better able to tell what is praiseworthy.

God truly is the Judge of all things. As we understand this, we become more willing to begin letting go of long-held prejudices about ourselves and others. We start abandoning what seems set in cement about human personalities, situations, inadequacies, circumstances, bodies, environments, histories. Then we must turn to God and ask Him what is true about His creation.

We have the spiritual capacity to see the spiritual reality, God's good and perfect creation. This is the spiritual sense that Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, refers to in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures when she says, "Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God. Spiritual sense, or spiritual judgment, does not just ignore evil. Instead it serves as a practical and powerful recognition of God's power and has an effect like that of b ringing light to a dark place. Judgment based on ignorance or materiality is like the darkness. When the true view, God's judgment, is seen, it destroys the inaccurate judgments--and the sin and sickness that so often accompany them.

This is how Christ Jesus was able to heal. It was not through some magical ability but through his consistent obedience to God as Judge and Lawgiver. While the unequaled spirituality of Christ Jesus enabled him to heal with unprecedented power, you and I can begin today to give up limited, human judgments and begin to yield more and more to what we understand of God's perfect judgment of His creation. We too will find this bringing healing and redemption to our everyday lives.