I get various wood particles in my eyes often. Sometimes they’re small, scratchy and irritable (like sawdust); but other times I find myself with a huge cedar plank lodged in them! When that happens I can’t see clearly – that is until our great God taps me on the shoulder and shows me what’s going on.
What on earth am I talking about?
To answer that question, let’s go to Matthew 7:1-5 (NLT):
“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated the same way you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.
And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”
A judgmental attitude – pridefulness. I’ve struggled with this often (Singing & Dancing For Jesus). Yet I’m thankful that since I came to know the Lord, He has been working on me, slowly scraping it away. His patience is unending, and I’m so very grateful.
A few years back I participated in a Bible study by Beth Moore called Breaking Free. In that study, Beth stated that she starts each day by confessing any pridefulness – even if she didn’t think she’d been prideful about anything! Her desire was to walk humbly before God each and every moment of the day.
After that lesson I was convicted, and decided to do the same thing.
The following morning I turned over any pridefulness during my morning devotions, and then headed off to work. It only took about 2 hours until the Lord showed me one way that I’d been judging and prideful.
I was in a co-worker’s office chatting, and in walked the president of the company. All of a sudden my cell phone started ringing loudly. I didn’t have it on mute! First off let me say few people have my personal cell number, so it was quite unusual for it to ring in the first place. But it was bad timing, quite rude, and through that the Lord reminded me that I’d been judging others in the office for doing the same thing – and now it had happened to me.
Ugh…
Then one day just a couple weeks later I was attending a group study, and found myself judging the person leading our discussion. This person certainly isn’t qualified to lead this study – the discussion is going all over the place!
Yep, you guessed it – the Lord again reminded me that the piece of wood stuck in my eye was getting pretty big. I should’ve been encouraging this leader and praying for them instead of being critical.
And quite frankly, who was I to think I could do better!
Oh, the struggles of living in this flesh sometimes. In my Healing Moments video a couple weeks ago entitled It’s Not All About Me, I spoke of an incident where the Lord spoke to my attitude by bringing me to the account in John 13 – Jesus’ last supper.
I had been struggling with “people.” People not doing what they said, and people being so full of “self” that they just don’t want to take the time to help others in need. Let’s face it – we want to do what “we” want to do, don’t we?
But the Lord reminded me through that passage of how Jesus – when He just had a few hours left on the earth – bent over and washed His disciples feet. His disciples certainly wouldn’t have stooped to do such a lowly task! Jesus took the time to care for those He loved rather than sitting and condemning.
God is so incredibly good, and so incredibly faithful. He never wants us to wallow in our sins, but rather when we seek to do what’s right, He will steer us in the right direction so that we can once again become clean and pure in His sight.
Sometimes all I can say is, “Forgive me once again, Lord.”
His reply? “It’s okay, my child, you’re forgiven. Now you need to move on.”
The God Of All Comfort 