Seeing Things Differently: A Case For Love

Lately, I have become more aware of how easily I link people’s actions to my overall perception of their worth as a person. It is a really ugly habit that I am working on. I find it so hard to not impose my own set of personal standards onto other people. On the one hand, I don’t think that it is good to simply pass over sin and numb our standards to a point where we have an “anything goes” attitude. On the other hand, I believe that it is far worse to see people as their sins or to condemn others solely based on our limited understanding of their lives.

A few weeks ago I found myself in such a dilemma as I reflected over the choices that a friend of mine was making in their life. I caught myself dangerously falling into the routine of trying to impose my own judgment on them for things that I did not completely understand. I remember suddenly feeling a gentle reprimand from the Spirit. I had the distinct impression that I had no place passing judgment on this person—my job was to simply love them.

Since then I have given a lot of thought to the way that I go about judging and the reasons that I do it. For me, I believe that the most common reason that I judge people is out of pride. We are able to gain a false sense of validation and satisfaction from the knowledge that other people do something that we think is bad. We incorrectly draw the conclusion that because we do not do the bad things that some people do, we must be better than all of those people. Not only does this harm the way we interact with others, it affects the way that we see ourselves.

When we have to justify our self-worth, we open up the doubt that we might not actually have worth. If we are constantly proving to ourselves that we are good people simply based on the fact that we are not what we consider to be “bad people,” our self-worth will never be secure. We will always have to wonder if we really are as awesome as we try to convince ourselves that we are. If instead, we define our worth as independent of how we compare to other people—if our worth is based on the love that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for us—we need not ever doubt that we are enough, that our worth is secure. This comes with the liberating realization that everyone’s worth is secure, that we cannot judge someone to be lesser based on what they do because their worth is already decided by the unchangeable love that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have for them.

In this way, I have come to a better understanding of how I can personally reconcile the need to simultaneously not accept sin and not judge other people. For me, the missing link all along was love. I realized that when you love someone and truly want what is best for them, you are saddened when they make bad decisions because you genuinely want them to be happy. You have faith and confidence in that they can change and find peace and comfort through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Love means kindness, humility, respect, and hope. There is nothing negative, self-righteous, or condemning about love.

This has helped me in the way that I treat other people and in the way that I talk about other people. For me personally, I believe that it is so much more important that someone knows how much I love them than that they know that I disapprove of something they do. I am reminded of the advice of one of my mission companions that “you should never say something to someone that is not motivated by sincere love and concern for them.” I think that this applies not only as we talk directly to people, but also as we talk about someone when they are not present.

In all of this, I am forever reminded of the immense love that I have felt from my Savior. Not because I deserve it, not because of anything I did to “earn it,” and in spite of all of my wrongdoings and shortcomings, His love has helped me  overcome both sorrow and sin. I want to be able to show that kind of love to those who need it most.