There was a cranky grandpa who stretched out on the couch one afternoon for his nap. While he slept, his grandson carefully applied some Limburger cheese to his mustache. Grandpa awoke with a snort and grumbled saying, ”This room stinks.” He walked from room to room and finally said, ”This whole house stinks.” He went outside and cried, ”The whole world stinks.”

It is so easy to blame the whole world for the bad smell that is right under our nose. Wherever we go, we take our attitude with us and we tend to judge the world we carry with us. Our attitudes, our experiences, even the particular mood we may be in at the moment tends to influence the judgments and decisions we make. We look around at the world and we may wonder if it really pays to be good. This was the problem that David had when he wrote, ”I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked... They are not in trouble as other men;... their eyes stand out with fatness: They have more than heart could wish... Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency.”

Only when we go to God do we get the answer. David found this true. He said, ”Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.”

We need to remember that things may not be as we smell, or see, or hear and that God is in heaven and we are on the earth. His ways and His thoughts are higher than ours even as the heavens are higher than the earth.

”He shall not judge after the seeing of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth.” The point is this. We judge by what we see, hear and smell, just like the cranky grandpa decided the whole world stank because of what was in his mustache.

It is so easy for us to come to wrong conclusions about others because of what’s under our nose, or what we perceive to be true. David was wrong to envy the wicked.

Many a person has suffered because of the mistaken attitudes of others toward them. Jesus warned us that ”the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” It’s sad to accuse the whole world of stinking because of what’s under our nose, but how much more tragic it is to actually kill, thinking that we are doing God a service.

Of course, we take comfort that we do not do violence. But it is possible that by what we say and do we are destroying others as surely as if we shot them with a gun.

For this reason, we need to be careful how we react to the smells, sights and sounds around us. We are going to need all the mercy we can get. If we have been mistaken in our judgment of others and condemned when we should have encouraged and forgiven, then we will receive the same kind of treatment we meted out to others.

The grandpa was considered ”cranky” because he judged others, even the whole world, by his own senses. We are going to need mercy and not justice ourselves, so let us begin to practice showing it now. Grace is getting what we don’t deserve and mercy is not getting what we do deserve.