We must understand that worship is not restricted to Sunday morning, but I feel that on Sunday morning (the Lord’s day) we should always be in the context of worship. Recently, I was in my “Meditations of The Heart” devotional by the late theologian Howard Thurman and he began to speak about something that I would like for all of us to take to heart.
According to Howard Thurman, he had the opportunity to attend a summer series on a university campus and one of the attendees could not sleep because the person he was rooming with snored heavily while he slept. This particular attendee had known his roommate/friend for quite some time and knew that his friend had this issue with snoring. Normally, he could sleep through it but the roommate decided to turn in and go to bed early and the noise from his snoring would not allow him to soundly sleep. This disgruntled brother came to the edge of Thurman’s room with disfigured and disheveled hair. He tells Thurman, “I can’t go to sleep. Have you ever heard such snoring?” Howard Thurman offered to this brother the empty bed that was in his room so that he could get some sleep as long as he could leave his reading light on. This was agreed upon and the brother began to sleep in Thurman’s room.
After about an hour this brother was sleeping very good. This is when the heavy breathing started and thusly the reciprocated snoring event by this brother began in full flow. Thurman was so disturbed that his reading was interrupted and he knew that no measure of sleep would come in that room. Thurman got up and went to the living room so that he could sleep. Thurman made it a point to wake up before this brother woke up so that the brother would not be embarrassed, but Thurman overslept. When the brother saw Thurman he said, “Oh no! Don’t tell me. I’ll never blow my top again about snorers.”
Beloved, much has been said concerning the comments of Kim Burrell and I am not going to focus on what she said, but on what the Bible says. God through his Word has constituted what sin is and what we should and should not be doing according to his statutes. But Romans 3:23 in sum says, “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” This does not give cause or excuse for us to sin or to measure one sin above or beneath another. As a matter of fact, we should not be measuring anything, we should not be judging anyone, we should not be condemning anyone because every judgment of another is self-judgment, every measuring of another is self-measuring, every condemnation of another that comes out of our mouth is condemnation that we turn back on ourselves. Let us leave the measuring and judging of our life’s activities in the hands of Almighty God.
It is so easy to judge someone because of their “snoring” while not realizing, focusing, and rectifying the “snoring” problem that we have. We all have faults and this is why we all need the love of Jesus Christ to lead us to the paths of his righteousness for his name sake. Jesus said in John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but will have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” Blessings to you on today and please remember as Howard Thurman reflected, “Every Judgment is Self-Judgment”.
