The limiting factor of snapshots

Luke 6:37-41

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” He also told them this parable: “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a pit? The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher. “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?

This past week was hard. I felt like I had been hit from multiple fronts spiritually, namely in the form of resistance of others. It is difficult for me when I take a step of faith, a risk, and open myself to another to try to share the Lord in some way and get what I call the ‘stiff arm.’ Last week Fr. Adam talked about how we can stiff arm the Lord in one way or another. He mentioned that Netflix, screen time, or sports were not in and of themselves a bad thing. However, if we are using something as a means to avoid a conversation with the Lord, then we need to recalibrate. I think this was last Tuesday night. Wednesday brought a binge of The Great British Baking Show for me. No joke. Binging is not my ordinary thing. I awoke on Thursday and reflected on Wednesday and asked myself in prayer, “Is there anything I am holding back from the Lord?’ My first response, “No, it’s all good.” The frustrations of Wednesday resurfaced several times (thank you Holy Spirit- He can be a bit of a tattle tale). Finally, I relented and admitted to the Lord, “Lord, sometimes I just want to smack people.” Can’t imagine why I would try to hide that very Christian sentiment. Later in the day I decided to take a walk for some fresh air and hopefully fresh perspective. As I was getting ready to cross a street I noticed a woman in a car waiting patiently for me to get to the intersection and let me cross. This was not a designated crosswalk area. I immediately thought, “What a nice person!” It was that moment that the Holy Spirit chose to utilize recalling to my mind a driver who had deliberately tried to prevent me from merging the previous week. My response? “What an @$$!” Oftentimes when this happens I feel the nudge of our Lord and correct myself, “I’m sorry Lord, they are not an @$$, they are only acting like one in this moment.” I pondered these two snap judgements that I had made to two different drivers in two weeks and the Holy Spirit expanded the lesson. How many times do I pass judgement on a snapshot of time in another person’s life? Think about it. Most of the interactions or conversations where I pass some judgement last less than a minute if not seconds. This took me down the rabbit hole so bear with me. This got me to thinking about how well we really know anybody in our life. We have in our memory a stack of snapshots of all of our shared moments together and what they have chosen to share and it can seem like a complete picture, but is it? Jeff and I have been married for 30 years (minus four months). In those 30 years we have each lived approximately 16 million minutes. On an average day we may have two hours of interaction which means that we have shared 1,314,000 minutes of snapshots. I have lived longer with Jeff than any other human being and there is still so much that I don’t know about the snapshots that make up his whole picture. There is only One who sees every single second of each of our lives. There is only One who has the perspective of all of the moments that feed into a person’s behavior or choice in one moment. It is not me. I must remember this lesson daily. I must invite Jesus in to give me the mercy and grace to meet everyone with mercy and grace. I know that I will still get riled up. Anger is a natural reaction to injustice. What I must strive to do is to not allow my anger to bleed into the rest of my day and my interactions with others. I must not allow my anger to create a snap judgement that I hold over that person for a prolonged time. This lent my spiritual abstinence is to withhold judgement. Please pray for me, I’m going to need it!