Wipe that Sneer Off!

Loving Father, You have blessed me so much with a wonderful companion and helpmate. We had such a good day together yesterday getting to experience some new things. Bless her today, Father. She is a cherished gift from Your gracious hand. Enable me to love her as You love her. Amen.

Matthew 7:3-5 (<<click the green)

Lord, why is it so much easier to put our attention into someone else’s issue than to address our own? Eugene Peterson’s translation of this passage in The Message makes us think.

It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor. _{The Message}

A big part of the issue is the fact that many of us would do almost anything rather than have to deal with our own issues. We know what they are, that’s not the problem, it most cases we’ve struggled with them for years! We try this and fail. We try something else and fail again. We are well aware of the log in our eye, or as Peterson puts it the sneer on our face. But we’d rather avoid the hard stuff and put our attention into addressing something much smaller – at least in our eyes.

And if we really think about it – and we are still dealing with judging here – we are just trying to escape dealing with our bigger, more complicated problem by judging someone else’s smaller problem, by comparison.

Lord, You want us to love our neighbor (Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27, Leviticus 19:18) but the only way we can be truly effective in loving others is if we’ve taken care of our issues. And by that of course, I am totally aware that I can do nothing in and of my own strength and wisdom. You are the changer of my heart, not me.

Lord, I would ask that You continue to help me to “wipe that ugly sneer off my own face,” the much deeper issue at hand, so that “I might be fit to offer a washcloth to my neighbor” loving them as I should. Amen.

Feb 4^th, 2018, Sun, 6:58 am