devotional - day 24

Romans 14:4 who are you to judge….?

Oh man. Ha! Don’t I suffer from such things? It is a daily prayer for God to please convict me of my judgmentalism. Oh. I’m better now due to that prayer, but I spent decades being super judgy. And as you can imagine with that prayer, I am still prone to doing so, but God quickly convicts me about it and I tend to ask for forgiveness on the spot. But my go-to response sometimes is to be conceitedly judging.

My older Gen-Z daughter of course embraced the “you be you” mentality that is prominent within her peer group (in theory. Not sure it’s super played out truthfully in practice by other Gen-Zers, but she does!) and my best friend is significantly less judgy than I am and has been calling out me on it for years, so I hear both of their voices in my head when I even begin to think judgy thoughts. 

An example. Say someone is wearing something I would never wear and just wow. So as I begin to think “what the hell are they wearing? omg. So wrong. Dude”, I will try to promptly switch to thinking “that is a BOLD choice. You be you!” The irony of me even judging someone’s wardrobe choice is high. Clothes are not something I like to spend too much money on. I am not trendy and have no idea what the current name brands are. I have shopped primarily at thrift stores and Target clearance ranks for my clothes for over thirty years now. Who am I to judge?! Certainly not me and yet I DO. 

I’d like to say that my judgments only apply to clothing, but they don’t. They run the gamut. It is not something I’m proud of and am quite happy to relinquish admonishment of that behavior to God. 

Where are some areas where you are judgy (or maybe you’re like me and the answer is “most areas”)? Consider asking God to convict you of such things. If you ask him to, he totally will. I can attest that it will help your ability to love others and see them as God does. And ultimately, isn’t it all of our desires to continue growing to be more Christlike?