Errors of Understanding

Often we presume to know other men’s hearts and minds and motives, and to condemn and to condone. And no doubt we are often right in our appraisal of other people. But we cannot be certainly assured of all that moves other men. And as we judge others (which in some ways we have to do, and which in other ways we have no right to do), we shall find, as time uncovers unforeseen facts, that we have misjudged many men in many ways.

Sometimes when we have assumed they were deceiving us, we shall find that they were telling the truth. And sometimes when we have accepted their assurances, we shall find that we have been deceived.

Sometimes when we have thought that they were exaggerating an ailment or an illness⎯that they could do more than they were doing⎯the unfolding future may show us that they were doing the best their situation and circumstances permitted; and that others who we thought were lifting a full load could have done much more.

Often also we fail to understand men’s fears because their fears are not our fears. We judge them by what we know, not by what they know; by what we have experienced. It is sometimes difficult for someone who hasn’t been through something to understand someone who has.

Sometimes some of us even forget when we were children and forget why we did what we did. But we earnestly hope that the Father of us all will not soon forget why we do some of the things we do, for there is nothing more sure than that we shall all someday be called to account for what we have done with what we have had.

And in the meantime, as Paul wrote: “Let us not . . . judge one another any more”⎯beyond the necessity of enforcing the law and beyond the essential minimum that we must judge in living and moving among men, for we simply do not know enough to appraise other people in all that is held in their hearts, and in all that has gone into their making in the immediate and infinite past.

The longer we live, the more we find that there are in the hearts and lives of others, things which we weren’t aware of. And the more we judge, the more we shall find that we have misjudged many men.