Judgment is totally misunderstood by the world. As the world
uses the term, an individual is capable of “good” and “bad” judgment, and his
education aims at strengthening the former and minimizing the latter. There is,
however, considerable confusion about what these categories mean. What is “good”
judgment to one is “bad” judgment to another. Further, even the same person
classifies the same action as showing “good” judgment at one time and “bad”
judgment at another time. Nor can any consistent criteria for determining what
these categories are be really taught.
The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world’s
learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible.
This is not an opinion but a fact.
In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be
fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present, and to
come. One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments
on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to
be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would
be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. Who is in a
position to do this? Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for
himself?
Remember all the times you thought you knew all the “facts”
you needed for judgment, and how wrong you were! To judge is to be dishonest,
for to judge is to assume a position you do not have.
Wisdom is not judgment; it is the relinquishment of
judgment. It is necessary for the teacher of God to realize , not that he
should not judge, but that he cannot.
Ask yourself whether your judgment or the Word of God is
more likely to be true. For they say different things about the world, and
things so opposite that it is pointless to try to reconcile them.
Certainly peace seems to be impossible here, yet His Word
has promised peace. God says there is no death; your judgment see but death as
the inevitable end of life. God offers the world salvation; your judgment would
condemn it. The world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word
assures us that He loves the world. Who
is right? For One of you is wrong. It must be so.
In your judgment peace is not possible in this world, and
can never be possible. But in the Judgment of God what is reflected here is
only peace. Make then but one more judgment. . It is this: There is Someone
with you Whose judgment is perfect.
Gently His judgment substitutes for yours. And through this
substitution you lay judgment down, not with regret but with a sigh of
gratitude. Now are you free of a burden so great that you could merely stagger
and fall down beneath it. Now can the teacher of God rise up unburdened, and
walk lightly on. Yet it is not only this that is his benefit. His sense of care is gone, for he has none. He has given it away, along with judgment. He gave himself to Him Whose judgment he has chosen now to trust, instead of his own. Now he makes no mistakes. His Guide is sure. And where he came to judge, he comes to bless.
It is not difficult to relinquish judgment. But it is
difficult to keep it. The teacher of God
lays it down happily the instant he recognizes its cost. All of the ugliness he
sees about him is its outcome. All of the pain he looks upon is its result. All of the loneliness and sense of loss; of passing time and growing hopelessness; of sickening despair and fear of death; all these have come of it. And now he knows that these things need not be. Not one is true. For he has given up their cause, and they, which never were but effects of his mistaken choice, have fallen from him. Teacher of God, this step will bring you peace.
