To judge or not to judge is a question all eventually will confront.

Let’s face it, the days of parachute pants and leg warmers are long gone. Likewise, small-town USA is no longer a shelter from a shrinking world full of powerful messages screaming for us to draw lines in the sand. That was then and this is now.

Shouldn’t we be careful making snap judgments about something we think we see and know about others based on the limited perspective we’re operating from?

Do alternatives exist to falling into the humbug rut of making snapshot judgments solely based on the times, culture or town someone grew up in?

Actually, there’s a better way allowing us to avoid making irrational assumptions. Postponing judgment for understanding creates paradigm shifts empowering us to see others from different perspectives.

If “To judge or not to judge?” is the question, then reframing or not reframing must be the answer.

When I contemplate reframing, I’m reminded of a picture in my office. It’s a

hologram. Depending on your vantage point, the tree changes in appearance.

Standing in one place, you’ll see a very green springtime tree, standing in another place, a golden fall tree, and from another place, a snow white winter tree. Three people can look at the picture and see something entirely different.

There’s an old story about an aging Chinese father and his four sons which makes sense out of this concept. The father advancing in years wants to teach one last lesson. He calls them to his side to send each on a journey to a remote place to find a particular tree growing in a garden. Each son is sent out with different maps and alternate directions to the same tree.

A year or so later, when the sons return from their adventure, an argument breaks out about the tree and the place it was located in the garden. They were emphatic they all visited different trees.

The oldest son produced flower pedals, the youngest a dead twig and the other two produced leaves that were totally different colors. As the debate escalated, their father softly spoke up, “My sons, you’ve all witnessed the same tree. The maps you were given took you on different routes, ensuring your arrival at different times. You have all seen the same tree in the same garden, but from vantage points based on the differing times of the seasons.”

Smiling, the father asked, “My sons, what have you learned from your journey?”

The oldest son spoke up, “Everything in life has seasons. Our judgments are profoundly affected by the timeframe we see something from.” The other brothers agreed. They determined not to pass judgments based on what they see from a single season of their lives, but to wait until they see themselves from the timeframe of all four seasons.

A 17th century writer once said, “The greatest gift is the power to estimate correctly the value of things.”

To properly judge a fig tree, by its fruit, you could wait five years.

What if we postpone judgment for understanding, realizing people living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones? What if you understood you’re not really much different from the person with all the tattoos or the homeless woman and her two children living in their car?

May you see the handwriting in the sand and actually read it. And as you drop your stones and walk away, may the powerfully great gift of correctly discerning the value of others become yours.

Instead of snapshot judgments, may you begin using reframing seeing the lives of others beyond what they appear to be, in exchange, for who they actually are and for the person they potentially can become five, 10 or 20 years from now.

What if postponing judgment for understanding is necessary to earn permission to speak into someone’s life? May you begin seeing others differently. Look at persons having problems instead of being a problem person. What if your willingness to reframe your picture of others allows them to see themselves from a different vantage point in the room?

What if that allowed them to become like the picture of the tree in my office? It’s a hologram. And it changes based on your ability to postpone judgment for understanding, simply by moving to a different place in the room.

Dr. T.J. Kimble of Radcliff is a clinical pastoral counselor. He can be reached at tj@yourbestlifenowcounseling.com.