Several years ago, I made a very bad judgment call that resulted in a lot of people turning their backs on me and my friendship. This mistake pretty much changed the course of my life, and since then, I have grown exponentially from it. But the fact remains, when I messed up, a lot of people were very quick to judge.

Now, it comes out that former presidential candidate John Edwards had an extramarital affair with someone back in 2006. He hid it for a while, but after a tabloid published something regarding it, he came clean. He admitted it to his wife, and she has forgiven him for doing it.

What about everyone else that is calling him degrading names and judging him for doing what he did. Sure, it was very wrong in every sense of the way, but it was a mistake. A mistake that EVERY HUMAN is capable of making. It’s easy to say that we would never get caught up in that kind of act, or any other act like it, but let’s be real for a second.

As humans, we all have a nature to do evil. When you are a child, you have to be taught to do “right”. We seem to figure out the “wrong” on our own. It’s due to our sinful nature as humans, simple as that.

For those of us that are Christians, we are called to forgive people when they mess up. Judging and pretending that any of us are better than anyone else is just naive and wrong. As Joshua pointed out on his blog, all of us, at any time, are only a few steps away from going down the path that leads to destruction.  Some of us always steer clear of the temptation, but it’s easier than you think to start to step towards that wrong path.

All this to say, please don’t be quick to judge others when they mess up.  Instead, be quick to forgive.  When it’s your turn to mess up in some way (and it will be eventually), you will need all of the love and support you can find.  You know, like Jesus would do.