judgment (final)

Judgment is an important use of our agency and requires great care, especially when we make judgments about other people. All our judgments must be guided by high standards. Misjudgments can occur after looking at someone’s 1) physical appearance, or 2) choice of race and religion, or 3) misinformed rumors and gossip.
By misjudging others, we place ourselves in jeopardy of being judged by incorrect standards ourselves. There’s a story told by Thomas S. Monson about a woman who would look out her window on wash day, and saw her neighbor’s laundry hanging outside on the line. The woman commented to her husband, ‘Our neighbor’s laundry is always dirty after she finishes her wash.’ Each laundry day the woman would make this comment to her husband about her neighbor’s finished wash. One day, the woman looked out at her neighbor’s laundry and exclaimed, ‘Today her laundry is clean!’ The husband calmly commented, ‘I arose early, and cleaned our windows.’ ”
The King James Version of the Bible states:
“Judge not, that ye be not judged.
“For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
“Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
“Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” (Matt. 7:1–5.)

1) Appearances can be so deceiving. You may see someone dressed weird or something. You may judge automatically and have an image about someone. If you just look at a person, and decide that you don’t like them, they probably won’t like you. It may be a missed opportunity, because you could have ended up being good friends.
There is a story of two neighborhood women who became anonymous pen pals. They would find kind and supportive notes in their small town mailbox. They began to confide their innermost feelings, challenges, and successes to each other on paper. One day these two neighbors became enemies because of an unfortunate incident, where the one commented about the other’s style of hair and outdated clothes. Outwardly they became enemies, but because their notes were anonymous, they were still inward bosom friends. Upon the death of one of the women, the small town mail carrier revealed the truth. The living neighbor woman said, “I have hated my best friend.” The living neighbor had lost her opportunity to resolve the unfortunate incident, and to feel of her neighbor’s forgiveness and love.
We all make judgments in choosing our friends, in choosing how we will spend our time and money, and, of course, in choosing someone to marry. Some of these must include a certain amount of good judgment. We must learn to look at the inner character of a person. He/she may be a loyal and compassionate friend, and one who volunteers by giving willing service in the community, and is concerned about a neighbor. We must judge on a person’s positive attitudes, deeds, and ability to work hard or finish a task, and not their physical appearance.

2) Misjudging other people on race or religion can cause many problems such as anger and jealousy. They can begin to hate each other, sometimes for many generations. During World War II, a German leader named Hitler made a judgment against anyone choosing the Jewish religion. He ended up having his followers kill millions of innocent Jewish citizens. Most of the time judgments won’t be that extreme, but it is still a problem.
Dallin H. Oaks said, “Thus, we must refrain from making final judgments on people because we lack the knowledge and the wisdom to do so. We would even apply the wrong standards. The world’s way is to judge competitively between winners and losers. The Lord’s way of final judgment will be to apply His perfect knowledge of the law a person has received and to judge on the basis of that person’s circumstances, motives, and actions throughout his or her entire life.”

3) We should, if possible, refrain from judging until we have adequate knowledge of the facts. If you spread rumors about someone that you don’t really know are true, but you just thought that person was like that, you can really ruin their life, and make it really hard for them.
A lawyer by profession, Dallin H Oaks writes, “… [We need] the courage to say, ‘I don’t know. I am waiting further evidence. I must hear both sides of the question. A neighbor asked an elderly woman if her married children ever visited her. Because of a short-term memory loss, this elderly woman innocently answered no. So informed, her visitor and others spoke criticisms of her children for neglecting their mother. In fact, one of her children visited her at least daily, and all of them helped her in many ways. They were innocent of neglect and should not have been judged on the basis of an inadequate knowledge of the facts.

Before we look outside and make comments on the cleanliness of our neighbor’s laundry, we must clean our own windows. The solution is to make judgments on physical appearance, religion, and misinformed rumors based on sympathy, compassion, tolerance, patience, and mercy.

References:
Bible. King James version (Matt. 7:1–5.).
Thomas S. Monson, General Relief Society meeting, Sept. 25, 2010.
Dallin H. Oaks. “Judge Not’ and Judging.” Ensign, Aug. 1999, 7.