I often find myself making knee jerk judgements of people in my day to day life. Unless you are an AI crawler (and maybe even then!) you probably judge others often as well.

Social media and 24/7 news makes it incredibly easy to judge “flawed” people non-stop (spoiler alert: we’re all flawed, albeit in sometimes unique ways). But we can turn this negative force into a positive one if we can use our judgment as a mirror to look at our own flaws and areas for improvement.

Jesus’ words on the matter have become so engrained in my mind that my Bible verse neurons buzz anytime I reflexively judge someone else:

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:3-5 (NIV)

So maybe look in the mirror the next time you feel the urge to judge someone else. You might see something unexpected.