Taking care of your own stuff

I had child care duty at church on Sunday. At 11:00 all the toys are put away and the children sit quietly and watch a movie while we are waiting for the parents to come. A little boy came up to me to inform me that a little girl still had a toy. I went ahead and took the toy away from the little girl. The little boy went back to his seat as happy as he could be. As I sat there watching, I looked at the little boy and lo and behold in his very own hand was a toy that he had not put away! I proceeded to to take the toy away from him and chuckled as I walked away, "He certainly didn't see that one coming." I shared the story with my other workers and they laughed too saying it sounded very similar to a Bible passage:

Matthew 7:1-5

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.

It is so much easier to see the sin in other people's lives rather than acknowledge your own. It is easy to see what they are doing wrong and to talk to God about it "Lord, don't you see what so and so is doing. Would you please work on that with them?" The Trinity probably laughs between themselves and God says to the Holy Spirit, "Why don't you go down there and hold up a mirror for her?"

Unfortunately, like the little boy in the story, I often learn this lesson the hard way. One way to stay out of this place is to walk humility. Beth Moore describes humility as, "bowing down before His majesty (pg 59 Breaking Free)." When you are humble it doesn't leave much room for you to be looking at your neighbors and pointing out all the problems they have in their lives.

It is hard to be humble, it is hard to let go of pride but as Mary Poppins says, "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." If you chose today to take a dose of humility medicine here is the sugar to help it go down:

Isaiah 57:15

For this is what the high and lofty One says—
he who lives forever, whose name is holy:
"I live in a high and holy place,
but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly
and to revive the heart of the contrite.

Where does God live? He lives high and seated on the throne in majesty but also with those who are humble in heart. His desire is to revive our spirits and our hearts. So today it is my goal to walk in humility, exalting the One who was, who is and who will be forever and to stop worrying about my neighbor.

In Christ,