A Dirty Rag

A Dirty Rag

“Matthew 7:3-5  “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?  How can you think of saying, Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye, when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?   Hypocrite!  First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”

Leo Tolstoy wrote a short story titled The Godson.  In one scene from this story the Godson is watching a woman washing a table with a dirty towel.  The more she scrubs the dirtier the table becomes.  She scrubs and scrubs until she is all spent.  The Godson tells her to wash out the towel and then try again.  The women does so and she quickly cleans off the table.  What was impossible before now becomes possible.

The same is true with us.  We try to fix, to clean up the lives of people around us, whether it be friends or family.   And just like the woman we try and try until we are all spent.  God speaks to us as the Godson spoke to the woman, and He says; “Why worry about the speak in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?  First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”

Do not we, like this woman need to ask God to wash out the dirt from our lives?  God can then use us, to help change the lives of our family and friends.  What was impossible before now becomes possible.