nix on the eyes and ears

First, I'm happy to report that after the last blog post, I was able to give Julie a blessing about the peace of the Lord - and the rest of the Lord. She was challenged to receive a part of it in the short term, and learn of it to gain more of it. She did that. She went from a continuously stressed out woman to one who can place her goals and efforts where they belong. Goals are great, but when they replace God as the center of your soul, you go backwards on everything - including your goals. When God is involved, you can't force things. An attempt to do so is a lack of faith. She understands that and taught me. I'm very grateful for that.

Today's scripture is 2 Nephi 21. Isaiah has never been my favorite - it's hard reading. But I found a gem in verse 3 "...he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears".

What? I thought that's how judgment is done! In court there is no stronger witness than an eyewitness, yet court officials will tell you that different eyewitnesses to the scene can have very different interpretations of what happened. But the Lord takes out what's visible to the eye as something he judges by. And then we take out the auditory side too? What's left?

What is left is God's judgment. He knows the back story. As well as I can describe it, he knows the fears, the pains, the self illustrations we all paint for ourselves on why the world really is as we perceive it. He knows our own self doubts, our failures, and the brokenness of people around us with all of their similar issues. He knows how we weave all that together to get a fabric of what we perceive. Of course it's distorted and always false to one degree or another - he knows that. But he knows us, he knows the reality of truth, and he judges us fairly. Not based on what the eye can see, or what is said or heard. He goes deeper than that.

It occurs to me that we all justify actions and judgments based on claims that "I know I'm right - I was there - I saw it happen", and this claim makes us presumably unsurpassed experts on a situation. This also makes our conclusions supreme in an argument. Yet the Lord doesn't use this even as evidence. He goes deeper. What kind of deeper? I can only guess like I did above. But the bottom line to me is this: if the Lord doesn't use audio or video in his judgments, why should we feel that we have that license? We're certainly not greater than the Lord.

Verse 4 - "But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth." It is possible for us to judge correctly, but it has to be done not through our own brains and judgment, but through guidance from God himself. If our judgment is not coming through him - if that pipeline to the heavens isn't open and we're getting it from Him, we'd better not be very insistent that we have it right.

Hey - I got something from Isaiah. That might be a first. I think I'll mark this day on the calendar