Originally posted July 2014:
Friend A was reading a Facebook status out loud on her phone. After she read it, she commented on how self-righteous and condemning the person sounded to her ears. It happened to be a mutual friend who had gone through something very difficult that went along with what she was sharing.
I knew the friend who posted the message was anything but self-righteous or condemning and shared a few things about the nature of the person's heart, some of the things she had helped me with over the years, and a little public knowledge of what had been going on in their life that had probably triggered what she wrote.
Friend A, who has a humble and teachable spirit, said to me, "You know what, I was putting my voice to the written words. It wasn't them who I was judging self-righteous and condemning....it was the voice in my head and the emotions in my heart. YIKES, I was really revealing ME!! I am the self-righteous and condemning one!"
I am so thankful for friends like Friend A. Iron sharpening iron! She brought to light a valuable lesson we can all take home today. I've done it too! I've read something and interjected my own tone and thoughts and made assumptions about the person's meaning, motives, and frame of mind. I've let it color my opinion of someone and affect how I have treated them.
There is so much lost in written communication so we tend to fill in the blanks with our own thoughts and emotions. The danger in doing that is not realizing we may be way off base in how we perceive the meaning and intentions. We can do a lot of damage to each other directly or indirectly this way. Let's tread gently and hold ourselves more accountable while we show others more grace.
