The week before Christmas we teachers read the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It had been over fifteen years since I had read that book. It was as if I was reading it for the first time. I was excited to break out of the normal “math teacher” mode and into my old elementary “teach it all” mode, and read to my children. Those 6th graders enjoyed gathering on the floor for “Story Time with Shuff”.
We didn’t even get out of chapter one when one of my “life lessons” was given. You see the book is about a group of siblings that were not-so-liked in their town who ended up being the lead actors in the church’s Christmas play. The young and old knew of the Herdsman children. Heck, even their mother wanted to work a lot so she wouldn’t even have to be around them. Their shenanigans were quite known. So their presence in the play, let alone their lead roles, was heavily looked upon.
The “life lesson” that I shared was regarding judging others and how everyone has some good in them. Personal (middle school) examples were given to make it more pertinent to my students’ lives. This lesson kept being applied throughout the story.
By the end of the story, I was somewhat taken by my emotions for the Herdsman kids. The “life lesson” I started out with at the beginning of the story ended up proving true. Yes!
We are bombarded with opportunities each day to be judgmental. But you know…that’s not our place. (See the plethora of bible verses on judging others.) We need to seek the good in others.
Oh, there are so many avenues I could take on this subject. (And I have a written few times about this topic. judging.)
I knew I wanted to write about The Best Christmas Pageant Ever life lesson, but just didn’t at the time. I guess God was still wanting to work on me.
Well, one other example happened to me recently. It wasn’t judging others, but denominations. My family attended our Southern Baptist church and heard our new pastor bring God’s word to life. After our 9:00am service, we went to another church to see the confirmation of a precious friend. The Episcopalian church was absolutely gorgeous. I saw many friends, whom I adore, attending “their” church service. The routine and the singing was different than what I’m used to, but before my mind got to “judging/comparing” any part of the service the guest minister began to bring the message. What did he mention? The bible verse about how we are not to judge others. I can’t remember now if it was from Matthew 7:1-5, but it was as if God was stopping me in my “denomination comparison” mind-set before it got started. I’m so grateful because I was able to look around and enjoy the service of dedication and confirmation.
Call it comparing or judging, but we need to leave that to God.
Six days later…
God’s still not done with me yet on this subject! OK, my computer was HaCkEd! I have been out-of-journaling-service for about a week now. When I finally got my computer back to being hacked-free, I see where I left off. I was about to post about “judging”. I’m not sure if God is preparing me for a time soon when I am going to be tempted to judge or He is just reminding me of an unconfessed sin or what. But this past Sunday, my pastor mentioned scripture about judging. Really? God must need to keep this theme of scripture in my face.
Okay, God, I’m listening.
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;” Luke 6:37
I hope you will be able to find the good in others and even in other situations in life that come your way. When we start observing the surface only, we just may miss out on some valued depth.
I pray God’s blessings and abundant love to y’all.
