A long time ago I thought that love was something that you reserved for some special set of people that you had judged worthy of it. After a while I got to thinking about what Jesus had said about turning the other cheek and loving our neighbor I put the two together and realized that he had made no exceptions in these statements. It became obvious to me that he intended that we exclude no one from the love that we are supposed to be giving. I started thinking about my idea of love and suddenly realized that I had not been loving anyone at all. I had simply been judging everyone and every thing. Judging someone worthy of love is not love, it is only judgment. I actually started to cry when I realized this. I saw just how much of my life I had wasted being judgmental, thinking of myself as a Christian, when I was actually doing just the opposite of what Jesus had asked us to do. I thought about the verse judge not lest ye be judged, and I understood it for the first time. I realized that I have a lot of catching up to do. So many opportunities were wasted. I now try to apply the love that I have for the world in a universal way like Jesus asks us to do. If I start to feel afraid and think that I see someone that I should not love because of something I have thought or heard I try to catch my mistake as soon as possible. I tell myself that I have forgot the truth and have fallen for the same old trick that had cost me so many opportunities to be loving in the past. The horror of this realization is often all that is necessary to bring me back to my senses and make me drop the judgmental nonsense I was thinking. I still have a lot to learn about love, but at least I’m making progress.
