to judge or to be judged

Man! This week was a dooszy (I'm not sure if that's the correct spelling of the word but it accurately describes this week.) Every aspect of my spiritual education this week, from church or else where, seemed to connect one way or another to what I studied for my NT class.

This last weekend I attended a missionary homecoming, in Utah, where the sister's topic was submitting her will to the Lord. It was a wonderful talk and the spirit was felt and shared. As I returned from my trip life all of the sudden hit very hard. Returning to work wasn't difficult, staying at work was. My coworkers are mean to each other, they complain about how hard their lives are, they smoke, they shout curses and are over all very selfish and worldly people. I care for them and tolerate their behavior often but on Thursday afternoon it was to much and I was ready to call it quits.

I knew I had to return the next day, even though I desired to give my two weeks notice. I continued on with the thought that I can make it through, I just need to get to Sunday.

As I Sunday approached I worked on my class work, sharing thoughts about the topic I studied for this week's lesson. This is what I had posted.

• "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment." John 7:24. I once had a friend that would tell me that he never judged people and we, my friends and I, would try to convince him that it just was not true that you have to judge people of would do it with out realizing it. But he was set in his ways and would tell us that Jesus is the only one who is allowed to judge us. He is right Jesus Christ is the only one really allowed to judge us for anything and everything we do. In this verse he tells us not to judge according to appearance, in righteous judgement. I believe what it means to have righteous judgment is to judge when those are in need physically or spiritually or when it is right to move forward on a certain path. We must judge in righteousness to choose if certain friends will bring us down or not.

I found it interesting that I had given my self a piece of the answer I didn't realize I had been seeking. "...to have righteous judgment is to judge when those are in need physically or spiritually or when it is right to move forward on a certain path. We must judge in righteousness to choose if certain friends will bring us down or not..."

Does this mean I am to judge my coworkers? No it means to judge when the spirit it trying to tell me when I trust in the lord or in other words, 'submit my will to the Lord.'

"When we judge without that feeling of confirmation, warning, or safety from the spirit, then we are not judging righteously. We should never judge who deserves and who doesn't deserve our kindness however, aside from friendship. We can also not judge who deserves the gospel or forgiveness or not. There is definitely a fine line between righteous and unrighteous judgement."

Isn't it interesting that we all choose this earth, this life but really couldn't imagine all that we would do here. As I was reading this comment made by my classmate, I thought of how in order to return to the Father we must be perfect. It is through Jesus Christ that we do so but not with out our obedience (righteous judgment of) to the spirit and our sacrifices we make. I was thinking of what it feels like when we recognize our natural man's judgement on another. The judgement that the natural man makes are  judgments made of an imperfect being. Our guilt would crush us and yet the perfect Christ would redeem us..even from this. 

Later on Saturday, I was helping my mother with her lesson on "Trust in the Lord and Lean not." We discussed about how as Spirit Children we had to trust in the Plan of the Father. We talked about how we sacrificed and forfeited our understanding of what the world would be like in order to experience earth life and eventually return to our Father in Heaven. 

 Lean not unto thy own understanding. This implies that we will not know everything but God will and will direct our path. 

We must put our trust in the Lord, follow our righteous judgments of the Spirit, and understand that we will not know everything. That we must experience that trust and following the spirit to gain knowledge.