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| Rock of Gibraltar |
It's
remarkable the extent to which the people I most admire as being
solid and steady have learned to manage if not to master the
difficult areas of external criticism and internal fears. Once I
asked a prominent person that I greatly admired a bareknuckle
question – “Are you a racist?” He thought for a moment and said
with a light chuckle "Some people may think I am." I
consider how less assured persons would have responded to this
question – with agitation, self-righteous indignation and anger.
Perhaps I was testing the man; if so he passed with flying colors. He
knew who he was – his essential nature – and was not and could
not be affected by the prejudicial judgment of others. Could he in
some sense be damaged by the negative opinion of others? No doubt he
could. We all can under some circumstances. But there is a certain
ease gained in realizing that only God sees the heart. The judgment
of all others is of necessity in some sense filtered through the
prejudices and inclinations of fallible human beings. When one is
content to let God be the judge of the heart, then agitation over
external criticism and internal anxieties and fears is greatly
ameliorated. It is practically efficacious to come to fear God and
not man, all the time keeping in mind that we are commanded to love
one another.
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