Monday 8 November 2010

j****ment

i think judgement is a really key idea, and lots of bad stuff happens when there is no judgement.

i also think that it is a fundamental way to discern how things should be. those that proclaim that we shouldn't judge, are doing themselves a disservice (err, sp?) and make it difficult for themselves to get on with life.

to flesh this idea out, here's what would happen if we were not allowed to judge ever again:

1. i would start with not judging my own deeds, and give myself the capacity to do whatever i liked. there would be no introspection, and no room for sanctification.

2. i'd be prohibited from caring about what kind of friends i make, which means i'd be prey to abusive friends just because i'd be not allowed to be a good judge of character.

3. i'd find that the more extreme minorities of the earth that say, glorify murder, paedophilia, racism and all other shades of evil, i would have to just let them run rampant in my society without even a opinion on the moral backlash, because oh yeah, that involves judgement.

4.there'd be no such thing as criminals.

5.friends that you could have talked out of a bad idea, now have no other choice but to run with their bad desicions and go down in flames, because there'd be no discernment allowed between good or bad actions.

when God calls for people not to judge, it is because we go over the top for the most part in our judgements. but God wants us to judge, only, start with yourself first.

"You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye."

there are also times to acknowledge when you cannot judge, that is sure. that is why the command "do not judge" is there in the bible. for the judge-mental. i think it's in us to want to judge when it is not necessary, or healthy, like judging non christians for example - if a person is not a christian, what reason or motivation could they possibly have to seek a godly life? those that do not live a godly life while not being christians is not something to be judged, but is actually something to be expected.

"What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside?"

it is a good idea to know who the supreme judge is in all situations, especially in the situations that are not up to us. we have to give up those fights to God, who will battle on our behalf. the bible allows God to judge when all is said and done.

"Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”says the Lord."

getting away with things scot-free doesn't exist because of God and that can be comforting to those who find the world to be a mass of injustice. however, it is also an affront to those who feel, in their own heart, that they have done nothing wrong. but hold on, doesn't that require some kind of self-judgement to come to the conclusion that 'you're alright, really' in the first place? what gave you the desire to evaluate whether you are good or not?? this underlines the idea that most people are actually quite okay with judging, so long as the judgement is one that doesn't step on our own toes. the closer we are to God, the less painful judgement becomes, especially judgement of ourselves, because the gap lessens between what we think of ourselves and what God thinks of us, and he allows us to slip more comfortably into his way of thinking. he never meant us to feel down about judgement.

"i have not come to condemn the world, but to save the world"

he meant it as a means to describe how much he loves us. when we put our trust in jesus for forgiveness of our sins, God judges us as if he were judging jesus, so he judges us innocent, and he judges jesus as if he were judging us, meaning Jesus becomes guilty for us.

not very many people love people that are consistently an irritant, annoyance or an enemy.

"while we were still sinners, Christ died for us"

his judgement is there as a persuasion to call out to him, a call to be saved, a call to be in his arms. a call to accept someone who has the greatest entitlement to judge, but is actually more willing to forgive, love, and bless instead.

Sunday 7 November 2010

charity vs charity

(disclaimer: i apologise in advance for the amount of times the c word appears in this blog entry!)

something that has cropped up within my time at barnardos a lot is the notion of charity (ohhh, that word), and what it means to be a charitable person. something i have noticed a lot about charity shops is that i am more indebted to those that walk into the shop to give their time away, rather than their money - i.e volunteers express a charitable heart more than most of the consumers in a charity shop do. after all, there are plenty of people looking to give their money to us with the proviso that they consider themselves to have found a real good bargain. i question whether that really is charity at all, as they are more interested in making themselves feel good in a superficial way, but nevertheless we need those kind of customers amongst all the other customers we get in the shop to make all the services in a charity run. with volunteers however, there are no provisos. sure, they can get a discount on the things that they find in the shop if they volunteer, but what they give to the shop is a much bigger investment.

"it's just like a magic penny
hold it tight and you won't have any
lend it, spend it and you will have so many
they'll roll all over the floor"

another thing that i have noticed within my work is the struggle in maintaining the right charitable identity. it seems there are two options - either Who you work for is your charity, regardless of who your customer is, or, the customer Is your charity, at the expense of flagging profit. err on one side and it is easy to forget that some people have no choice but to get their clothes from our shops because they would never have the money to go elsewhere. sometimes our clientele is the exactly the kind of people that the charity would need to champion and defend, and to insist on prices that aren't high, but just on the side of unaffordable to them, can be heartbreaking. on the other hand, allowing things to be priced as near to pocket money as possible to be in the customers good books puts the charity into trouble and it means that the services they seek to provide cannot be properly funded, and with the consequence of having to downsize the vision of the charity. you also have to factor that a charity, under the benefit of experience and gathered information, possibly has a better notion of how to use what they receive to help the poor, than, say, a poor customer would.

here's where these thoughts leap into the age old question of whether or not to give money to the homeless or to give it to a charity. in my work, the two ways of expressing being charitable meet and do not quite see eye to eye because it affects business practice, yet somewhere along the line they should meet nonetheless.