"Judge Not, And Ye Shall Not Be Judged" - Luke 6:37

My Stake Relief Society Presidency had someone from LDS Social Services do a workshop type thing for us last week. It was nice. The sister talked about depression, anxiety and other things. One of the things she discussed was changing our thought process from being negative to being more positive. She related a story from when she was at BYU and her Sacrament meeting was held in the Orem Institute game room. The story was told to her from a friend, whose Sacrament meeting was held in the same place.

The way the room was set up, everyone was faced towards the front where a couple vending machines were to the right. During one Sacrament meeting, a young man walked into the room, up to the front, got something out of the vending machine, and left. 

How would you have reacted if this happened during your Sacrament meeting? My immediate reaction while she was telling the story was, "What on earth was he thinking!?!" 

The friend was thinking along the same lines I was, and just so happened to be sitting next to the wife of one of the members of the Bishopric. The wife leaned over and whispered to the friend, "Oh, he must be diabetic."

If you had seen the young man in the hall later, how would you have acted? If you thought the way I did, you may have looked away from him or had a scowl on your face, or something else that was probably negative. If you had been the wife of the Bishopric, you may have gone up to him and asked if he was ok and seen how he was feeling. How do you think he felt knowing he had to interrupt a Sacrament meeting because he had to have something to eat? That was probably a hard decision for him to make. 

Her point of the story was that we don't know what has happened in someone's life. We should not be quick to think negatively about the situation we see. We need to watch our thoughts and work on changing them from being negative to being positive. Even when we are cut off by someone when we are driving (another example she used). When we think negatively, we are judging them. 

I thought that was something to share. I know I'm not perfect and need to work on my thoughts. I know of others who judge me and my family and how much it hurts us. Please be more understanding of others. You really don't know everything about them.

Note: I'm in no way singling anyone out or have anyone specific in my mind while writing this post. If you find you are questioning yourself, then maybe you have something to work on, just like me :)