M y half of the dorm room looked as if some fiendish academic monster had thrown up all over it. Books covered every available surface. Papers sagged over the desk's edge or lay pinned between two textbooks. Memory cards lay on their backs, their dead stares pointed toward the ceiling.

I sat paralyzed. What should I do? My numbed mind suggested only one option: flailing my hands, stomping my feet and screaming. But the thought of explaining my behavior to my roommate kept me calmly in my chair.

The crinkled pages of a magazine poked out from the paper tray on my desk. I leaned forward and slid it toward me. A doctor in sea-green scrubs smiled from the magazine's cover. Defiantly I flipped open the cover and hunkered into my chair. What would 10 more minutes matter?

I slowly waded through the photographs and lines of black print. Nothing I looked at registered in my mind until I saw a picture of a rock musician. His glowing red eyes stared out into nothing. His face looked gaunt. His skin seemed to shimmer with silver, the metallic color his only clothing.

I shook my head and mentally curled my lip. I knew young people listened to this man's music, and I knew the lyrics did not glorify God. With a mixture of disgust and sadness, I quickly turned the page.

"Gross," I whispered. The Holy Spirit tugged gently at my heart. "What good did your judgment do?" he seemed to ask. Two thoughts warred within my heart: "Do not judge lest you be judged" and "Judge all things." What was right? What would God want me to do?

"Pray for him," the Holy Spirit seemed to say. "Pray for him?" I repeated in disbelief. If I saw this man on the street, I would lock my car doors. If I prayed, I would pray for my own safety. Yet those words caused me to think of the movies, politics and books I had scorned as ungodly. I thought of the people I had judged and rejected --thinking them below my acquaintance because they might "taint" me with their sin.

I saw the wrong of my actions. My heart, like my room, was a mess. Instead of an academic monster, a hatred monster had belched his toxic waste into my life. Deeming myself a moral guru, my judgment of this musician stamped him as a hopeless cause. In essence, I was saying he went beyond the reach of God's grace.

How many people actually pray for this man? How many people, like myself, instead slap him with charges and throw him in the jail of their morality with no hope of bail?

I thought of myself. Would I have known the joy of Christ before I was saved if people had only pointed their finger and labeled me as evil? I realized that God was teaching me an important lesson that night: the need to love more perfectly.