11Don’t speak evil against each other, dear brothers and sisters. If you criticize and judge each other, then you are criticizing and judging God’s law. But your job is to obey the law, not to judge whether it applies to you. ; 12God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?

James 4:11-12

I struggled with this one yesterday. How do you deal with a situation like this in a God-honoring way? There were many parents sitting in a lounge area of a hotel, waiting for their kids to take state tests. Two online public schools were using the hotel at once, so there were many more parents than in previous (peaceful!) years.

For the most part, everyone was considerate and quiet, using their downtime to read, fuss with their phones, or quietly socialize. Except for one parent. She was having an issue with credit card machines for her business and over the course of an hour got more and more irate with the people she was trying to reach on the phone. She was swearing to herself, at the representatives on the phone, and yelling at her son, who was too young to be testing, so 2nd grade or younger.

I imagine that others were as uncomfortable with the situation as I was, but we were essentially captive to this one woman’s venom. I cringed each time she got a new person on the phone and proceeded to vent her frustration with the situation, threatening to dump the company completely and go with xyz company.

My natural reaction was pity for the people she was dealing with and irritation with her. I prayed for the situation, and came to see that God loves her, just as much as he loves me. It changed my attitude, but still I struggle. How best to deal with the situation? What I  chose to do was pray, and I’m sure that’s a very good thing to have done, but is there ever a good way to approach someone in an instance like that?