One can not step from one footing to the next without making a judgment - taking a decision to go one way or the other. In our spiritual warfare, it is important that we clarify how judgment plays an important part in the battlefield of our hearts and minds.

The judgment we speak of now is not condemnation nor praise - in other words, we are not discussing judgment here as to say that is good or that is bad. But to discuss and understand how sharpening our awareness of the judgment process that we may avoid the pitfalls of judging ourselves or others.

As we mentioned earlier, one can not step from one footing to the next without making a judgment on which way to go - left or right, north or south. These simple daily judgments are made without the need of the heart - and sometimes even without the need of the conscious mind really. For if you decide that you want to go to the church to pray, you do not dissect the step by step process of how you will get there. You simply get in the car and go. You know where the church is, you know how to get there and even how long it takes. Though it seems a very simple task, there are literally hundreds of judgments made in this simple action. But we do not notice them because they are done without emotion, without passion and without the added weight of desire.

Do you actually think about breathing in or out? Of course not, it comes naturally without thought. Yet it too is clearly a judgment. Simplistic yes, but none the less a judgement. How do we know this? Because there have been times when you held your breath for a purpose. You chose to hold your breath. You judged that you could do it and for how long. You even judged that doing it, for a brief period of time, would not harm you. The only reason the breathing in and out does not seem like a judgment for you now is because it was a habit formed by you from the very first day you were born. This non-emotional use of judgment is what we need to polish, as it will be an extremely helpful tool in winning our daily battles.

Choosing to go to church to pray and choosing to spend eternity with Jesus Christ are judgments made in the same simplistic vein. For achieving unity with Christ really is that easy. It only seems difficult because we don't do it every minute of the day. But look at it this way, if we asked a five year old child to go to church and pray, that task we made for ourselves that was so simple, would not be so simple for that child. Why? Because the child does not know how to drive a car, does not know the way, plus many other factors. But achieving eternal life with Christ is as simple as that. We have been given the way, the means, and the capacity to achieve it. We merely need to make a judgment call to do it.

Okay, let's try this, you wake up and say "Today I will not sin." Simple to say and really, a good judgment call. And let's say, you struggle with that statement for the entire day. You would quickly realize that the action would be futile for our very existence is based on sin - born of, carried through, and die in. And yet, if you made this statement daily you may actually start to recognize sins you did not even realize. Saints are humans, just like you and me. The difference between us now and them then is that they had polished and fine-tuned their judgment, learning to catch a simple slip of their mind, a stray thought or idle glance. They would be able to recognize these missteps (so to speak) then dissect them as to what caused them, then take measures to prevent them from happening again. Always within the body of prayer to God, confession, repentance and tears asking for His mercy, His strength, and His guidance. For them, sin in thought is as dangerous as sin in action - for proceeds the other.

The use of judgment is required, even the choice of inaction versus taking action is a form of judgment. Spend time with God, spend time with your spiritual mentor, spend time with the Bible and start to breakdown the judgment process to its simplest stage. There are 842 words on this page alone. That means you made 842 judgment calls to read them. You probably breathed 842 times while reading this as well - free will choices on your part. You made a judgment to come to this site, then click through to get here (there are no short-cuts by the way). And within the body of this reading, you made countless judgements on whether or not to read on, believe what you read, accept what you read, re-read what you read, disagree with what you read and so on, and so on. Learn to recognize these conscious and unconscious judgments so that you may hone it to a fine accuracy to help you catch the bad judgments and continue the good judgments.

May God bless us both in our spiritual endeavor and grant us blind eyes to the world and percision focus on ourselves.