I have eye trouble. Maybe, I actually have “I” trouble. I think that the truth is, I have eye and “I” trouble.
You may be saying to yourself, “That boy right there ain’t right in the head.”
Well, you may be right. But, that is a different problem entirely from my eye/I trouble.
See, “I” have a natural tendency to see what is wrong with you and be blind to what is wrong with “I”…er…me.
Heck, I can spot the guy that dresses funny all the way across the Walmart parking lot while I don’t have a clue that Bozo the Clown wouldn’t be caught dead wearing my outfit.
I guess that is like being farsighted. Or is farsighted where you can only see things close up? Eye don’t remember.
I used to know a guy that had a nose that was so big, I couldn’t hardly talk to him. I mean, this was a cartoon quality nose. I have never seen such a thing on another real live person. I used to wonder if it hurt his neck to carry that thing around all day.
I still nose him (sorry) but he had something done with his nose that makes it look way too normal for his face now and I still talk to him distracted by his nose while I wonder what the heck they did with all that extra nose they removed.
I’m not going to transition from eyes to noses now. I’m just trying to show that eyes seem to do things I don’t really want them to do. Maybe my tongue is in some sort of conspiracy with them against me.
See, when my eyes notice something about other people, it gives my tongue something to talk about (that should usually remain unsaid).
Matthew 7:3 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 4 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? 5 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.”
Jesus gets right to talking about my eye problem. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to remove specks from the lives of others while I have a log sticking out of my eyeball socket.
Not only can I not see well, with no depth perception (depth perception is a requirement when seeing what others are dealing with) but I don’t have long enough arms to perform any delicate surgery on someone else when I have this giant Sequoia hanging off my face.
Another quick side note here is that a lot of specks in others lives clear up when I remove my own log. It seems that I am responsible for placing specks much more than I have removed any.
Jesus may sound a little harsh by using the word “Hypocrite” here. But I’ve learned hearing Jesus say that to me keeps me willing to hear other truth. While flinging the “Hypocrite” word around generally shows I am in denial about something pretty serious.
I can recall grabbing the log in my eye and pulling, twisting and tugging on that thing from sun up to sun down and that thing never budged.
For a lot of years I just gave up on it and stumbled and struggled clumsily through life wondering why life was so hard.
Life is tough with a log in your eye.
Finally, after a lot of mishaps, missteps and a lot of other thing that start with “mis”, I sat down with God and talked to him about this thing.
We came to agree that I was just going to ignore the specks, splinters and other lumber products in the lives of others and set to work, working together, to remove this log and heal my eye and the damage the log has done.
I could never ever have gotten to this place where I am today without God being the project manager on this huge task. I’m not going to sit here and tell you the work is all done either.
Yeah, the big old log is pretty much gone. But the way I was used to seeing the world lies to me about what I see now. It tells me that what I saw in the past was truth and what I see now is just my imagination.
So, I have to seek truth…even if I don’t like what truth has to say.
I still have an I/eye problem. But it isn’t the same as it was. It is more manageable and easier to maintain.
Oh, I know that this speck I have here and there can still somehow turn into mighty logs again, but not as long as I am willing to allow God to keep them clean.
I even seek out guys that have had successful log removals to help me with my specks. I can see clearly most of the time and life is a lot easier. Depth perception really does make my spiritual walk less hazardous.
I don’t have to look on others and see their specks to make me feel like I am worthy of something. It is a lot more fun to look at others, ignore their specks and see they are worthy of more than I can give.