Day 64
2 Again we come to the question of judgment. This time 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. God offers the world salvation; your judgment would condemn it. God says there is no death; your judgment sees but death as the inevitable end of life. God’s Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it is unlovable. Who is right? For one of you is wrong. It must be so.
When you put it like that, Jesus, what else can I do but acquiesce to your logic? My vision of this world is so completely different from God’s Vision that I cannot do anything to bring it in alignment. All I can do is accept that I am totally wrong. To say that I am right would be saying that God is wrong. Am I going to try to school God now?
The most helpful practice I have been given lately (I think it came from Regina) is to remind myself to disregard appearances. I cannot accept God’s judgment of the world if I believe what I see with the body’s eyes, and hear with the body’s ears. I cannot accept God’s judgment if I insist on making my own judgments.
I find it helpful to frequently remind myself that what I see is the effect of a thought in my mind. It is so easy to forget this. If I confuse cause and effect, I use the effect to prove a lie is the truth. I met someone new. When I met him my mind did that little judgment trick where it placed him in a box. This box was labeled “not all that smart”. When he would talk to me I would see the error in his words, and his inability to clearly express himself, and the box would get smaller and smaller. He even looked like he wasn’t all that bright. Everything he said and did confirmed my judgment.
Then one day we were playing a game that required a lot of knowledge and reasoning to win. There were probably a hundred questions and he knew the answer to every one of them. Oops, wrong box! I had to take him out of that box and put him in another one. This is one smart guy. From that point on I began to hear his words differently. He started to sound smart to me, and in fact, I began to see his strange answers as being above my head rather than confused or unknowing.
I don’t actually know anything about him. I only see the proof of what I decide is true. If someone says something to me and I have decided that person is not very smart then the words I hear prove they are not very smart. If I think they are smart then I hear words that prove they are smart. This is true no matter what the words are.
If someone who is a genius says something that doesn’t make sense to me then I hear those words as so far ahead of me that I can’t understand them. How I see the person has nothing to do with him, and is actually a reflection of my thoughts about him, my judgment of him. My belief comes first and the appearance comes second and that appearance seems to prove my judgment. I use the appearance to convince me of what I already decided. Its crazy and its how the ego works.
I will not see the world as it is by regarding appearances as true, by believing what I see. I will not see the world as it is by learning to be a better judge. I will only learn to see the world as it is by not judging at all. I will see the real world as I lay aside my judgment and allow truth to take its place.
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