Bite Your Tongue

It seems we are all so ready to be negative and offensive toward each other these days. Recently, I heard someone say that Adventists are known for killing their wounded. In other words, we’re mean to each other.

The other day in a bookstore, I glanced over the various sales tables. One large table had about 30 books on it that focused on Bush and his presidency. They were, without exception, negative and mean-spirited. Mean-spirited, partisan politics is a poison in our society.

We should not think that we can escape this negative atmosphere at home and in church. When we are surrounded by negative, offensive, bickering people at work all day, guess what attitude we bring home with us at night?

My mother’s words come back to me at times like this: “If you don’t have something good to say, don’t say anything at all!” Have you opened your mouth lately when you should have kept it closed?

Of course, there are two sides of this coin. We are ready to be offended these days. We tend to get defensive and are always ready to lash out in self-defense. Perhaps we should begin to make a conscious effort not to be offended, even when others are truly offensive.

Sometimes, avoiding a negative, critical spirit and being positive is really difficult. We definitely need God’s help in the effort; we must do our best to develop good habits. Speaking of our day-to-day need for getting along with others, Ellen White urges us to “Cultivate the habit of speaking well of others. Dwell upon the good qualities of those with whom you associate, and see as little as possible of their errors and failings. When tempted to complain of what someone has said or done, praise something in that person’s life or character” (Ministry of Healing, 492).

Be a Good Judge

One of the routine responses offered by my students when discussing difficult moral issues is, “Who am I to judge?” I immediately shoot back that he or she is the perfect one to judge. We do not live in a relativistic society. We simply could not function as human beings without thousands of judgments each and every day about right and wrong, truth and falsehood. But, and this is a big, big but, this does not mean we are judgmental at the same time. One does not, should not, be judgmental simply because one makes careful, discriminating judgments.

My dad’s favorite proverb was, “If you walk through a cow pasture, you will get cow manure on your feet.” It was his way of teaching us to think well, to be a good judge. One of my favorite scenes from “Winnie the Pooh” books is when Pooh goes to his thinking spot. When there, he just walks around in circles holding his chin and mumbling to himself, “think, think, think, think.” Sometimes we are afraid to think carefully about our lives and the things we do and say. When we think carefully, with the discernment of the Holy Spirit, we are, by definition, judging.

Scripture calls us to “test the spirits,” not to throw up our hands and say, “Who am I to test the spirits—each spirit has a right to think and do whatever he wishes.” We must judge the beliefs and actions of others without being condemning, negative and judgmental toward them as persons. We judge and prepare ourselves to give good reasons for what we believe for our own self identity, not to tear down someone else’s identity or beliefs.

Being a good judge helps us identify what we believe and what kind of a person we wish to be. Being judgmental is an attack against another person, which should never happen. After all, mom always told us, “Think before you speak.”