Mind Meld of A Different Kind

MATTHEW 7:1-6
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

"Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

Just call me “Plankeye”
It’s so much easier to pick out and point out other’s faults and sins than to confess my own. And I find it rather easy to confess my own! Thing is, I consider many of the sins in others to be more dangerous to God’s Kingdom cause than my own sin.

Take judgmentalism for example. So many “spiritual folk” hammer people for peripheral “sins” or things that aren’t really sins at all (poor judgment maybe, but not sin) while they themselves display attitudinal sins like Rudolph’s red nose! Jesus hammered these rigid, judgmental kind of people.

Problem with me following Jesus’ example is that I’m not sinless like he was. I tend to hold grudges against people like this. Worse, I don’t have the same mental clarity as Jesus did, so (I hate to admit this!) what I see as dangerous and harmful judgmentalism, may, in fact, be a prophetic call to repentance and holiness.

While Jesus was fully human, I think the spiritual clarity he possessed as a fully divine person enabled him to respond with perfect appropriateness to people rather than out of any unhealthy or unresolved issues from his past. I hope the more I take on Jesus’ character that I too will have increasing clarity. But I strongly suspect that my childhood experience with judgmental Christians colors my response today. Growing up deeply imbedded in the church exposed me to plenty of perfectionism, criticism, and judgmentalism.

So, as much as it pains me, I have to listen to Jesus myself, rather than think of others when I listen to him talk about planks in “you own eye”. He’s talking about me. As debilitating as judgmentalism is, my sin is always the plank, and others sins, even the sin of judgmentalism, is always the speck.

Gracious God, you see me completely and know the ways I bring harm to your creation through my own sinfulness. Grant me the increasing ability to inspire others to leave all kinds of sins behind by leaving behind my own. - Mike Leamon

Logging
Logging is one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet. There are a myriad of potential hazards lurking for the worker who cuts corners or tries to rush. We burned wood to heat our home when I was on the farm which meant we cut a lot of wood.

Grandpa and I were team workers when it came to wood-cutting. He would be in the woods, cutting and trimming the logs and I would drive the tractor, hauling the logs out of the woods to where we could cut them up more easily. One day Grandpa was trimming an ash top and a limb snapped unexpectantly and cut Grandpa’s leg. We had to run Grandpa to the hospital where he received multiple stitches.

Jesus uses an absurd analogy to teach a simple truth. No one has ever had a “log” in their eye, but we have all had a speck of sawdust or dirt in our eyes. Jesus turns the tables on us and tells us we all have logs in our eyes that need to be taken care of.

Taking care of the log in my eye means I need to let the professional logger come and do His work. Logging is never free of pain. There is cutting and skidding and at times collateral damage. Logs often affect other areas of my life that I did not think were involved. Following the removal of my log, I am in a position of humble love and empathy for those with logs and splinters in their eyes.

Master logger, I come to you with a sharp awareness of the logs in my life that need to be removed. Come in with your logging tools and work in my life removing all that stands in the way of your will. Clear out everything that is not of you in my life. - Dan Jones