So I thought I’d do my wife a favor. She had a package ready to mail this morning to the Social Security Administration and asked me to take it to the local Mail Stop when I realized it was going to an office about 20 minutes away. Now I knew she was nervous about sending her drivers license in the mail and waiting for them to mail it back (she was applying for a new S.S. Card and they required her actual license for identification) so my offer to personally deliver her application and hopefully come back with her license was met with great enthusiasm and appreciation.

Had I known that this kind offer would have necessitated a move to a new office posted on the door of the former site, and a DMV style waiting room with about 40 people ahead of me, complete with ticket number and a follow-your-progress-on-a-posted-chart monitor, I might have given my offer a second thought.

But I have to admit that these types of gatherings provide an opportunity to measure my reaction to people I might not come across in my usual course of life. This was a very diverse cross-section of people. There were all types here — varying sizes and shapes, ethnicities and nationalities, languages and subcultures, colors and classes. My tendency without thinking is to judge people who are different, putting myself higher than them. They’re from another camp or tribe. I don’t get it, and I don’t have the time or patience to learn. It’s easier to just dismiss the moment rather than imagine myself as a part of this diverse family. But that is exactly what I must do if I want to know God.

I need to learn to put others over myself, especially those who are different, or those I don’t understand. Every person, if they are a human being, is made in God’s image and they mirror some part of God which I haven’t encountered yet, if I haven’t met them.

As I sit here waiting for my number to come up, I realize I’ve got to beat this tendency to judge. So I start imagining everyone here as being one who is deeply loved by God. And should I be given the privilege to get to know them, I would find out why. And I would love them too. So why not just love them now?