Thinking everyone in the room is judging you.

I'm pretty sure it's happened to all of us at some point. You say something stupid while you had everyone's attention, and now they're all judging you for your stupidity. The guy with the glasses that belong in the 90s, the girl with the whiny voice, the know-it-all who corrects every fact, and that person who you didn't even think was really listening because they were too busy updating their Facebook. Now you're almost certain they're updating it to mock you.


It would be one thing if these people were on your level, but your voice is clear, your glasses are modern, you aren't a nerd, and you'd rather be disconnected from the internet and spend real time with people. You're better than they are. So that they would judge you makes it burn a little stronger.


Maybe you haven't encountered this. Maybe you're getting a glimpse of what life looks like to someone overly prideful. And maybe I'm being way to obvious about what I'm trying to get at: you usually end up thinking everyone in the room is judging you because you are judging everyone in the room.


The college group from my church is spending the summer going through Romans, and a few weeks back, we talked about Romans 2 and judgement. For those of you unfamiliar with the passage, here's a key verse (Romans 2:1):


You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.


As Christians, I think we can often take this as not judging non-christians. But, it goes further than that. It's a blanket statement. We are not to judge that 'guy who claims to be Christian but only shows up to church on Easter' as much as we aren't supposed to judge anyone else.


The overall point here is that if you find yourself feeling judged, it's very likely that it is because you're judging others. And that's something we all need to keep in check because it can destroy relationships.