Although we’re not supposed to, we tend to judge people by their appearances. We’ll look at a neatly dressed person and usually let that person just pass by without much thought. But if we see a scruffy looking person, with unkempt hair and possibly dirty clothing, we make an adverse judgment.
Appearances are seldom what they seem. Sometimes they do reflect something about the person – sometimes the lack of care for oneself, sometimes poverty. Haven’t you ever looked at someone on the street and wondered how he or she got that way? I know I certainly have. And then I think, “There but the grace of God go I.”
For those of us who have had the benefits of being the right race, being born in the right country, having had the right education, it’s easy to judge someone else who never had those benefits, or through some quirk of fate or by one’s own making lost part or all of it. Moving beyond judgment is one thing; what to do once we’ve don’t that is another.
Prayer for the Day
Not trusting in your grace, we are sometimes fearful, O God,
For pain and illness bursts into our lives and we know not what to do;
Friends and family suffer and we know not what to say,
Feeling helpless because we rely on our own strength alone.
May we feel your presence, O God, so we may be truly present to each other,
As did the One who is your presence in our lives,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen
Thoughts for the Day
I’ve gotten the short end of so many sticks that I could start a bonfire.”
- Craig D. Lounsbrough, professional counselor
Bad things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people. Bad things happen to okay people. Bad things happen to everyone.”
- Catherynne M. Valente, American fiction writer and poet
Then Job answered: “How long will you torment me,
And break me into pieces with words?
These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me?
And even if it is true that I have erred, my error remains with me.
If indeed you magnify yourselves against me, and make my humiliation an argument,
Know then that God has put me in the wrong and closed the net around me.
Even when I cry out ‘Violence!’ I am not answered;
I call aloud but there is no justice.”
Job 19: 1-7