Devotional – January 10, 2014

Christmas is beginning to fade from our memories, the New Year isn’t so new any more, and we’ve just experienced a bitter cold snap that’s given most of us cases of cabin fever.  We may be a little cranky, a little critical, and a little hard to please.  It’s human nature in January.  I heard this little anecdote by way of a family friend and thought it might give us all a little reminder about perspective.

A young couple moved into a new neighborhood. One morning while sitting at the breakfast table by a window,  the young woman noticed that her  neighbor was hanging her laundry out on the clothes line. (Very environmentally friendly, using solar power!)

“Those clothes don’t look very clean — they’re pretty dingy. I don’t think she knows how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry detergent.” Her husband just listened, looked out the window, and remained silent. Every time the neighbor hung out her laundry, the young woman made the same comment.

A month later, the woman was surprised to see clean, bright clothes on the line. She said to her husband, “Look, she’s finally learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her?” The husband replied, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”

And so it is with life: What we see when watching others depends on the clarity of the window through which we look.

It was fun (and not terribly difficult) to find a Bible verse that tells us much the same thing in the words of our Lord.
Jesus said:  “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ while the log is in  your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”
Matthew 7:3-5