......Judge Not

We should make sure that we investigate what we hear before we put words or information about others into the atmosphere. It was a cold brisk night in South Florida, a major shift from the 90 degree weather a week prior ~ the pastor of a local church was seen by his neighbor's son with a plastic bag full of beer headed towards his back yard. The young man, offended and hurt, went to his parents and told them what he had observed. The parents embarrassed, told their neighbors and that neighbor told their neighbors and the word got back to the congregation at the church. The church was shocked and shortly thereafter one of the deacons approached the pastor with the news. After hearing the news, the pastor burst into laughter; he said to the deacon, "I will go and speak with my neighbor's first and I will mention this to the congregation Sunday."

The pastor went to his neighbor's and said, "Good afternoon, may I come in?" Apprehensive, his neighbors let him in. The pastor went on to say, "There seems to be some misunderstanding and I think I need to bring clarity and closure to the situation. Your son observed me 3 days ago walking towards my backyard with a plastic bag full of beer. What I need to explain is that the neighbor on the opposite side of me, has a son that hosts parties every weekend while his parent are out of town ~ they consume lots and lots of alcoholic beverages and unfortunately they dump the cans in my yard. I collect the empty cans, place them in a plastic bag and walk over to the party with the bags and instead of condemning them, I take the opportunity to share Christ with those attending the party. Afterwards, I walk to the other side of my house and throw the plastic bags of beer cans into my trash. The family, embarrassed, they apologized to the pastor and realized that they should have approached the entire situation in a different manner.

~ Don't rush to judgement~