Self Deception
“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.”1
You may have heard the story about the elderly woman who, when sitting in the waiting room for her first appointment with a new dentist, noticed his DDS diploma, which bore his full name.
Suddenly, she remembered that a tall, handsome, dark-haired boy with the same name had been in her high school class some 40-odd years ago. Could he be the same fellow that she had a secret crush on, way back then?
Upon seeing him, however, she quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was way, way too old to have been her classmate.
After he examined her teeth, she asked him if he had attended Morgan Park High School.
“Yes. Yes. I did. I'm a Morgan Mustang,” he gleamed with pride.
“When did you graduate?” she asked.
He answered, “In 1959. Why do you ask?”
“You were in my class!” she exclaimed.
He looked at her closely and then asked, “What did you teach?”
How easy it is, when meeting old friends we haven’t seen for many years, and think to ourselves how much they have aged, not even imagining that they might be thinking the exact same thing about us. And amazing how easy it is to see “the speck of sawdust” in another’s eye but fail to see “the plank” in our own eye.
Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to get real about my own self with all my sins and faults so that I will not be judgmental of others. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’s name, amen.”
1. Jesus, in Matthew 7:3-5 (NIV).
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All articles on this website are written by
Richard (Dick) Innes unless otherwise stated.