Who's the judge?

     I just attended a "Talent Search" here in Sun City. As you can imagine, since you have to be over 55 to live here, the contestants were, shall we say- "not young"? There was a group of 22 women, former cheerleaders maybe, aged 57-80 that did a pom pom routine. The contestants had been pre-screened by previous auditions so this group of 12 semi-finalists were to be judged to continue on to the finals. There were two "official" judges, both connected to the entertainment industry, and the audience all had ballots to fill in. The pom pom girls were pretty good for their age but I don't think they would be as impressive if not for their advanced years. Since all the other acts were single individuals, there were more audience members to vote for the pom pom girls than for any other act. I seriously doubt they would have been voted on to the next round in comparison to the other acts if not for the audience vote.
     This has gotten me thinking about judging. I can't understand, for instance, why some movie star is interviewed on a tv show to give advice on raising children, or a sports star to give advice on dating, or a music star to show how to cook. Would it be appropriate for an expert equestrian to audition opera singers? Should a knowledgeable architect rate a heart surgeon's work? How is it determined who should act as a fair judge in anything? How is it determined who is an expert in anything enough to act as a judge? There are many different aspects of every category and generally there is ample room for widely varying opinions on how well something works, how it looks, how much effort is required to use each method to accomplish the task at hand, etc. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder, and that is also true of nearly every aspect of anything. How about character? Who has a legitimate right to judge whether a person's character is "good" or "bad"? Even in what could be considered extreme situations, there can be differing opinions. For instance, most people would judge that killing a child is bad. What about abortion? What about war? We humans are all constantly viewing the world around us and trying to decide what we agree with. We "judge" all day every day.
     The scriptures say, "with that same judgment which ye judge ye shall be judged". Most people are quick to remind others to simply not judge. That really doesn't work. When anyone adopts a "herd mentality" and goes along with what people around them are doing rather than think things out for himself, really bad things can happen. We have all seen images of riots and there are way too many examples of genocide in the history of the world. Such people have no self-confidence in determining for themselves what should or should not be done. They are trusting too much that others are choosing what is best. On the other hand, a person who claims to be a rebel can be just as unthinking. To choose a path simply because others are NOT choosing it is just as foolish. A rebel has too much self-pride and trusts very few others. Neither way is going to work to judge what is right (good) or wrong (bad). So, who is to define what makes "good" character? God? By whose definition would that be? I certainly would not agree with the judgments of the god chosen by radical extremists in ANY religion. For me, that would even include those who make "God" someone who is so totally forgiving and loving that He doesn't care what you do as long as you say you believe in him. Simple vocal declaration of belief means very little. The way you live is more of a declaration that means something. When can you believe a hypocrite or a liar?
     The bottom line is, we each choose/judge. God will for sure have the ultimate word on everything and when we all face the ultimate judgment, we'll find out. In the meantime, until we die or the Second Coming occurs (whichever happens first), we will continue to judge all day every day. We judge for ourselves how important it is to be honest, to be helpful, kind, forgiving, willing to sacrifice our time or energy to benefit others, to make the effort to learn, to spend endless hours in self-entertainment and self-indulgence. In essence, we are our own judges. God is not going to force anyone to Heaven. He only wants to spend eternity with those of His children who want to spend eternity with Him because we want what He wants. If you want to destroy the lives of those who don't believe as you do, you will spend eternity with beings who want to do that, too. If you want to work hard so you aren't a burden to others, you will spend eternity with those who are also willing to work hard. If you want peace, you will spend eternity with peaceful beings. YOU are the judge.