Lesson Learnt From a 'Religious and Respectable' Person

There is this perception nowadays, 'You must never trust a person who's too religious' among some of the people I know. Whether the majority of the world have this perception or not, that I have no idea about. So I decided to share my interesting experience with a so-called religious person because I suppose maybe some of you could relate to this experience of mine. 

One fine day, my friend and I bumped into this person who is a respected lecturer in a shop. We recognized him from a religious talk we attended and he was the speaker. Personally, I thought that he was very knowledgeable and some things he shared about God made so much of sense. Since we recognized him, we stopped and looked at him for a few seconds and then went on with buying groceries. I told my friend, 'Hey look, this was the lecturer who gave that talk the other day and he was really good wasn't he?' She agreed with me and after that, we jumped to another topic and wasn't really concentrating on him anymore. 

We then went to pay at the cashier and he was standing right in front of us. At that moment, all of a sudden, he turned to look at us and started asking us questions like if we were students from the campus he was teaching. We answered him politely and suddenly, he stopped and asked us, 'So do you think it is very funny to see a man who is very religious and pious looking?' At that moment, my friend and I were truly stunned because minutes ago, we were actually talking about him very respectfully and for some reason, he got that aura or perception or call it whatever you want about the both of us. 'No sir, of course it isn't funny and we weren't really laughing at you.' But the conversation went on for a few seconds and he ended his ADVICE with, 'That's alright girls. God is watching and he knows who is right and who is wrong.' Well to tell you the truth, I was extremely pissed off with that man because he had no right to accuse us like that especially when we did have much respect towards him for the way he spoke about religion. On top of it, he used to give us this weird stare whenever he saw us in campus. Even after all those years! 

I may not know much about religion, but I know if you are truly a devotee of God, you would not be bothered about matters like what people think about you because you know in the end, the deal is only between you and God. I also know that it is not at all polite to accuse people of doing something that they didn't. So just like that, my respect for that lecturer flew out of the window. JUST LIKE THAT. 

The reason I am sharing this incident is not to express my dissatisfaction towards the person involved but it is a reminder that perception can be very deceiving. You may perceive something as the truth but it really isn't. Without listening to the other person, you would never come close to the truth. I suppose nowadays it really isn't easy to find an inspiring religious speaker who is also good human beings. If you know any, please let me know as I am always eager to learn more about God. :-)