Handicapped?

I wrote this on one of my other blogs today but thought this part belonged here too.

Got home last night and discovered that my Handicapped Parking placard had arrived. I have really mixed feelings about that. I have always resented people who took the handicapped spaces when they obviously didn't need them. And I have also had a tendency to be judgmental about people who appeared to be handicapped primarily by their obesity (their own bad choices) and I swore I would never be one of those people! Well ... here I am! And it's more complicated than it appears (as may be the case for some of those I have judged in the past) so I am not limited only by my obesity although it certainly makes things worse. Anyway ... I accept the parking placard, because it will allow me to pursue a normal life and make it easier for me to pursue exercise without risking injury, but it is my sworn goal to no longer need it by the time it expires in February 2015! At least as far as is within my control! Will I be slender in 2015? I don't know. I doubt it. But I will not be morbidly obese. And I will no longer suffer with a self-imposed handicap!


In the meantime I am convicted by Matthew 7: 1 - 2 "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." I dared to judge others whom I assumed were handicapped by their own choices and now I find myself in a similar boat wondering if I appear that way and sit under judgment by others. Not too comfortable. I have always had a tendency to be quick to judge, to leap to criticism (and some times unsolicited advice), to render lofty opinions on matters that are none of my business. And from time to time God has drawn me up short and convicted me of my attitudes or used life experiences to show me what it is like to be on the receiving end of such judgments. It' not at all pleasant!

I'm sure it won't suprise anyone who reads my musings on even a semi-regular basis that I loved this passage (in context and beyond) in the Message:

Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.


Matthew 7:1-5, The Message

I think that a critical spirit must be one of the ugliest things on earh and yet so many of us, especially believers who should know better, struggle with it! Or worse yet ... don't bother to struggle. We just accept it (in ourselves if not others) as a normal part of living in the flesh and we continue to indulge in our haughtiness. But that is living in the flesh and THAT IS NOT what we are called to! We are called to live by the Spirit and the Spirit does not judge, he is not haughty or condemning, or quick to render unsolicited opinions!

I wish I could have learned this lesson an easier way. But if it took touching my knees and back with arthritis and allowing me to regain the weight it took me years to lose in order to teach me that my critical spirit is ugly in God's eyes ... then I welcome the pain! I only hope that I also grow from it ... in wisdom, though hopefully not in stature!