Judging the Cymbals

 

"I want to play the cymbals!"  My three-year-old daughter said, in a very upset voice.  Her older brother had just confiscated the play instruments.

Elise likes to sit on the floor and crash them together at regular intervals while she sings snippets of songs that she knows.  Some of her favorite songs are Happy Birthday and There is a Balm in Gilead.  

"But you're making too much noise with them," Elliot said.  "If I give them back, will you stop banging them/"

"Just give them back, Elliot," I said.  "She'll make noise with them, but so did you at that age."

"I did not," Elliot said in an aggrieved tone of voice.  "You never gave me cymbals when I was three.  I still don't have cymbals today!"

"And for good reason," I said.  "Mom and I probably wouldn't have chosen that musical instrument as a toy of choice to give to Elise either, but someone else was kind of to give them to her for her last birthday.  I'm sure if you had had some at that age, you would have used every opportunity to make noise with them."

Elliot still wasn't convinced.  Childhood behavior is a little like snoring -- since you don't remember doing it, it's questionable if it really happened or if other people are just giving you a hard time for no reason.

I often think about Jesus' command in Matthew 7:1 "Judge not, that you be not judged."  I think this passage is commonly misinterpreted.  Jesus wasn't telling us not to be discerning or wise in our relationships.  

We need to make decisions about other people and whether we should have a close relationship with them.  Some are acting in ways that won't help or actually deter us from achieving our goals.  Even as we judge other people, we need to make certain that we judge ourselves just as hard or harder than we do others in our lives.

If I don't like a behavior in someone else, am I willing to eliminate it from my own life?  Am I good at excusing my own dysfunction and even sin, while coming down hard on other people?

Often, when we begin to judge ourselves first, it will give us grace when dealing with others with similar issues.  It might even give a twelve-year-old boy patience when dealing with his three-year-old sister who wants to play toy cymbals in an annoying fashion.