I met with my dear friend, Amelia, from camp today. We rarely get to see one another, but when we do..it is a sweet sweet reunion accompanied by kind words, refreshing "real-ness," and peace.

What I loved most about her is her transparency and honesty, which was even more apparent than usual today when we talked about addiction, sin, idolatry, angry thoughts and bad intentions. We marveled at how we are constantly blown away by "realizations" of holy truths that are so extremely elementary that we overlook their simplicity with our overanalyzations.

We talked about those trivial sins like passing judgement on things that are not biblically "right" or "wrong," such as the appropriate age to get married and other subjects that really can be stripped down to who's opinion sounds better.

The Bible is the definite standard in the majority of these situations, but what about when things are hazy. The subjects of interest that cause the most conflict seem to be those that are in the midst of the grey area. And in these cases the honest words of my lovely friend seem to be stuck in my head, that "in these moments, I realize that the deepest condemnations I have towards others can be pointed directly inward, where my own sin, insecurities, and idols are left to formulate their own 'ideas' about others.." That sin itself can almost always be explained by my need to feed my soul with anything besides God.

Something like, "My condemnation of those that [insert judgmental phrase here] directly points to the fact that I'm [incredibly insecure about______, unforgiving of ______, too selfish, unloving, etc]."

If only self-reflection naturally came before outward condemnation...even if you aren't a Christian..it kinda just makes sense to have a nice self examination before bringing on the judgement.

Then we could tackle the root of the problem first and delight in the fact that if we all had the same opinions about non-harmful "grey matters" the world would be a very boring place.

Elementary....right?