Judgment - Justice

Here is the picture in my mind of the way I was taught about judgment and justice when I was a young child. These images in my head have haunted me all my life.  "Angels above us are silent note-taking of every action semicolon then do what is right."

I have come to think very differently about that mental image.  These thoughts are not my original thoughts.  I have gleaned them from the book "The Christ Who Heals" by Terryl and Fiona Givens.  They have given me a new paradigm, one that touches my heart and makes me happy.  I am most grateful.

God is not judge a waiting to dish out my sentence.

Earth is not a testing site and there are no no grades.

There is no eternal hell.

Heaven is not a place.

John 12:47 I came not to judge the world but to save it."

Accusatory judgment is Satan's role -  not God's.

We do not earn heaven - we co-create it.

Earth was designed as a place where we "would become as the gods knowing good and evil." Surely it is obvious that we get to know a lot about evil as we hear the daily news. Evil is all around us, corruption in government, schools shootings, drug cartels, murder, theft, war, weapons of mass destruction, an economy based on greed, modern day slavery, a market for child sex, rape, abuse, torture. We are bombarded by the evils of the world.

The miracle is that amidst all of this, most people choose to live honest, decent lives. And those whose lives are touched by evil forgive and move on. And then there are the heroes - the ones who step up and look evil in the face and rescue a friend or even a stranger from its grasp. The world is filled with goodness that is remarkable!

But because of this duality - the presence of both good and evil, and because human life is a complex mixture of genes, environment, and even "good or bad fortune," we leave earth wounded; we carry scars both visible and invisible. There is so much inside us that we aren't even able to remember - we bury memories that hurt deep within our psyche.

And then we die and all those experiences are a part of who we have become.

We need a place where we can sort it out and make sense of it all. We need a place where we can judge what has been for our benefit and what has been for our detriment.

We need a "sacred, safe place where love and understanding prevail, allowing us to come to self knowledge and self understanding, perhaps for the first time."

This is "judgment as an awakening of self." Here in judgment we come to a perfect knowledge of ourselves.

"Self-knowledge is the precursor to healing and to wholeness. Judgment is the prelude to progress."

We enter the next life with "that same Spirit which doth possess" our bodies now. We are wounded and burdened; in the misery of sin as the scriptures often describe it.

How wonderful it will be to their meet the Savior and in the presence of His Love - the one who loves us as we are - begin the process of sorting out our life.

"Before we are able to progress further in the eternal worlds we must come to a recognition of our divided self and are guided gently to bring the apparent and the authentic selves into harmony."

Now we are ready to move forward.

The Lord promises that all that happens here will be for our good. How can that be? The horrors of life are so unimaginable. We all carry wounds.

"Judgment is an assist in recognizing our true condition in order that we may improve it, not suffer from it."

"That day of judgment will be a day of mercy and love - a day when broken hearts are healed, when tears of grief are replaced with tears of gratitude. When all will be made right." President Dieter F Uchtdorf

"God wants us to live beautiful lives, devoid of unnecessary suffering. Certainly right and wrong, sin and virtue are indispensable elements. But the point of God's concern about our sin and virtue is that sin is pain and virtue is happiness. Sin is whatever is crippling, destructive of human relations, whatever distorts our hedges up the way of flourishing. Virtue on the other hand is wholeness, the measure of our creation. We are indeed heavy laden, and Christ, the source of healing balm, wishes us to recognize our need for the fountain - head of the abundant Life, the source of rest from the illusion of self-sufficiency and from the fear of judgement alike. 'There went virtue out of him', Luke records, 'and healed them all.'"

So what is my new picture of judgment? It is just me, alone with the Savior - wrapped in the warmth of His Love - Father and Mother are standing by smiling.

That picture is consistent with my understanding of God's plan of happiness. It is consistent with my understanding that God the Father and his son Jesus Christ are the same in their attributes and purpose and especially in their love for me.

And in this context the word justice takes its true meaning. Liberty and justice for all comes through Jesus Christ who has prepared the way before us that our progress through the eternities might never be stopped.

PS: the book of my life is the record that is recorded in me - in my psyche, in the fibers of my body, in my heart. It is the sum total of all that I can remember and have forgotten. And it includes all the buried memories and coping skills and habits that inhibited me. Oh, how wonderful it will be to open that book at last and be free!