I show unto you a way to judge
30 years after this picture (taken while on my honeymoon) I still pinch myself to know Jen married me! She has more leadership in her finger than I do in my whole body. She has more love, tolerance and patience too (thankfully or I wouldn't be pinching myself, I’d be lost).
Over the past 30 years she has taught me so many things and sets such a powerful example - how can I go wrong!? But wrong I have went too many times and boy it can be a problem. I mean seriously, I have major room for improvements.
Think about this question for a moment - How do you want to be judged? Seriously, consider for a moment when you are judged by friends, family and ultimately God - how do you want them to judge you? Do you want to have mercy, the benefit of the doubt and leniency extended? The obvious answer is YES! But why? My answer today is because our actions haven't been as good as we'd wished.
Without mercy we all fall short. So if you believe in any type of heaven then you have to believe in mercy. What is mercy. I will define it here as the difference between our actions (what we actually have done or do) and our intentions (what we wanted to or intended to do). Thus mercy is extending grace and love (judgment) to another by their intentions and not by their actual actions.
We have read and know the principle found in the scriptures that with what judgement we judge we too will be judged and with what mercy we extend we too will have that same mercy extended to us. If we are merciful we have hope of having mercy extended to us, but if we are harsh - well there’s less hope.
This is why how we judge, both ourselves and others is important. Can we improve how we judge? Absolutely.! The best way I know how to do this is by minding your Intent Syndrome.
What is Intent Syndrome you ask. Well let me first say, I learned of the concept from Steve W. Albrecht an accounting professor at BYU who specialized in forensic accounting. He had extensive experiences with accounting fraud cases (he was the expert witness in many such cases). He gave a talk to the students at BYU (I found his talk over the internet a few years laters as I was never at BYU). It is one of my all time favorites. Intent Syndrome centers around how we judge others verses how we judge ourselves. Here is the key - we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and judge other people by their actions.
This is were the problem comes into play. For most of us, our intentions are much better than our actions. I intend to lose 20 pounds, eat healthier, exercise, work harder, etc.... When we do this we think we are better than we actually are and if that was the end of Intent Syndrome so be it. But the other part of it is that we judge others by their actions NOT their intentions. Thus we tend to think others (our spouse, friend, co-worker, neighbor, etc...) are worse than us; we are better than them. When in reality we are giving ourselves an extra measure of latitude (our intentions are above our actions). We tend to do less than we think we are doing.
Steve W. Albrecht, said, "none of us is as good as we think we are, and yet we are probably not as bad as other people think we are. When we judge ourselves by our intentions, we tend to rationalize our shortcomings and give ourselves more credit than we deserve." On the flip side we tend to judge others more harshly than we should. Too leniently with ourselves, too harsh with others - not a good recipe.
When Professor Albrecht would talk to someone who had committed fraud and been caught, they would usually say to him something like 'I intended to pay that money back. I really did.' Where as the owner of the money would say, 'You dirty, rotten crook. You stole the money.'" Can you see how we judge people by their actions and they judge themselves by their intentions?
If you want to be a bit more successful, try not to let the gap between your intentions and your actions become too large. Then look to extend mercy to others, judging them by their intentions. This allows you to not judge others so harshly. In the same vane, maybe some could take the reverse lesson here. One side is if we judge ourselves solely by our intentions we may be giving ourselves credit for more than we deserve. The reverse is if we judge ourselves solely by our actions we may be too harsh. We need to see us more how God does, with love and mercy extended.
To be more successful with others and ourselves, try reducing the gap between intentions and actions. Focus on humbling noticing the difference between intentions and actions. Judge others with an added measure of their intentions and judge ourselves as needed, with either more actions (most of us) or more intentions (some of us). Not too harsh, and not to lenient - thinking you are the greatest thing in the world isn't the greatest thing in the world.
Comments