Blueprints for Living Ministries, Inc.

It is hard to look down on someone when you have been down there too.

Every now and then I scroll past a video of someone crying. Not staged. Not polished. Just a person breaking in real time. And instead of thinking, “That’s what you get,” or “Maybe now you’ll turn your life around,” my mind goes somewhere else.

I remember.

I remember what it feels like to sit under the weight of your own decisions. The shame. The guilt. The fear. The isolation. That quiet kind of desperation where you know you put yourself there, and you don’t know how to get out.

When you’ve been there, you don’t speak so quickly. You don’t mock so easily. You don’t stand over broken people with cheap words and easy answers.

That doesn’t make sin small. It doesn’t remove consequences. But it does something important. It humbles you.

Because if you’re standing today, you know the truth. You didn’t pull yourself out by your own strength. You were helped. You were shown mercy. You were given grace.

And that changes how you look at people who are still in the pit.

Some people talk down because they’ve never really faced themselves. But those who have been low, really low, tend to speak differently. There’s weight behind their words. There’s restraint and understanding.

Not softness toward wrong, but sobriety about what it means to be human.

So before you judge someone in their lowest moment, remember your own. And if you’ve made it out, say it honestly:

By the grace of God.

New series coming, titled:

"How Wicked Acts Become Protected by Law"