Leadership
WHY
I have always been a questioning person.As a child, I don't believe you could give me a piece of cake and tell me it was sweet without my asking, "Why is it sweet?" But my main area of questioning has always been, why do people do the things they do?Just because I have asked someone,"why", I have been told that I have a hard heart (meaning that I am unbending and unforgiving and maybe bitter) and that nothing other people do is ever good enough to suit me. It just simply is not true and I feel that it is a harsh thing to accuse me of with no real basis.
. I have never really been able to explain my need to know why people behave the way they do, until recently. We had a really big disagreement in our family. Someone who knew better, was not acting better and there seemed to be no accountable reason for it. When I tried to find out why, my sister in law told me to just leave things alone for a while. I told her that it was my belief that we do not have a guarantee of a tomorrow and that we have to do the best we can today, because we might not get another day to fix it. She said I was being judgemental and that I didn't get to decide who was right or wrong or who went to heaven and who didn't. That was not my intention, but for some reason if you point out that people need to live every day like it is their last, they get angry and accuse you of all kinds of things. I guess the idea that if you believe in a heaven, you believe that not everyone will go there, kinda didn't sit well with her.
I just cannot accept that people will do mean things just because they don't care. I cannot make myself believe that they cannot do better. I refuse to live in a world where people are just mean for the sake of being mean, with no reason. Part of me knows the world probably is like that so, I try to find the reason and force the person to own it and change it.
It is not that I consider myself perfect, although I do not hurt others needlessly. Lack of consideration for myself or someone else is what I am most likely to point out. Then it will come across as being judgemental. I am pretty sure it stems from some pretty bad treatment I received as a child. I developed this attitude that if I could just understand why someone hurt me, I could cope with it emotionally. So, what others think of as judgemental, is really a coping mechanism that I developed very early in life.
For years I believed that what needed to be understood and changed was within me. But around the age of 11 or 12, I started to realize that other people, who were totally different from me, were mistreated. If this were true, the fault had to lay outside me. I was angry about this new revelation.After a while, you figure out it takes too much energy to be angry at everyone all the time. So I reverted back to a modified question, "why do you behave the way you do?" without adding on the silent question of, "Is it something I did?"
I figured if people were really not bad, and they cared about me as much as I cared about them, then open communication was good. Sometimes you misunderstand what a person does or says and the only way to clear things up is to ask questions. I wouldn't want to jump to any conclusions, just as I wouldn't want them to jump to any over what I do or say.
I have found that the people who are the most likely to say you are being judgemental are the very ones who don't want to be held accountable for anything. They will automatically assume you think they were wrong just because you asked, "Why?" Frequently, they will try to avoid accountability by throwing out the tried and true, "why is everything I do wrong" or something similar. I can't let it go at that though, because that is trying to put the blame back on me, when there may have not been any blame at all to start with. Usually, I have already tried to figure out if I did something before I asked anyway. At any rate, I turned to scripture fo determine if I were correct. This verse tells me not to let people like that make me feel guilty. 2 Timothy 2:15 (New International Version)15Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth. 1 Peter 3:16 (King James Version)16Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ.
It is amazing though how many times, when a conversation starts out this way, the person already knows they are wrong and abusive. Everyone knows abusive people always try to blame their victim or change the conversation to some fault of the victims. I guess I refuse to be a victim too often and stand up for myself in a manner that is not typical. I tell people, "I do not like it when you do this, and I would like to understand why you did it." That being said, "I will not allow you to do that without hearing from me." You are supposed to tell people you love when they need to correct something and they are supposed to accept it with love. Hebrews 12:4-6 (New International Version)4In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. 5And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you6because the Lord disciplines those he loves,and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."
When I began to really understand the scripture on this subject, I began to feel that being stuck with the label of judgemental was not so bad.
It may even be exactly what I should be. Accountability is not a double standard with me, I believe in answering for what I do and say. Maybe this will help others to understand me and why my attempt to understand appears judgemental. .
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