A Prayer About My Plank-Filled Eye
“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, 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 you’re your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:1-5 (NIV) (Internet link to ESV)
This is really a powerful verse. Five minutes before I started to type this, I had just made a judgment call on someone, and as I am typing this verse, the Holy Spirit tapped me on the shoulder and said: “Read what you are typing!” Ouch!
From his power daily book of Gospel prayers, Pastor Scotty Smith writes:
Heavenly Father, when I rubbed my irritated eyes this morning, I soon realized it was not a speck of dust but a rough-hewn board stuck there. I didn’t realize it until now, but I went to bed last night having made myself the chief prosecuting attorney in the supreme court – the judge and jury and executioner. Just because I don’t throw things or scream and yell doesn’t mean I’m not a critical person. Condescending smugness is just a synonym for “clanging cymbals” (1 Corinthians 13:1).
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Have mercy on me, Lord Jesus. You are so forbearing, kind, and gracious. Have mercy on my, the self-righteous sinner.
My self-righteousness usually shows up not in trying to merit more of your love but in withholding your love from others. The dark irony is that the sins that offend me most in others are the very sins most pronounced in my own life – a lack of mercy, unbelief, a critical spirit – I wish those were the only ones!
Lord Jesus, as cardiologist and ophthalmologist, bring your grace and truth to bear in my heart and my eyes. I want to love as you love and see as you see. I do not want people to feel pressure to change who they are around me, nor do I want them to feel my indifference and disengagement. Teach me and lead me in the third way – the way of the gospel.
Since you do call us to help one another with our “specks of sawdust,” help me be a first responder to the life-giving rebukes of friends; a humble recipient of the feedback and reproof of those who long for my freedom; and someone who anticipates, welcomes, and acts on the daily, evenly hourly call to repentance. I pray in Jesus’ gracious name. Amen
Wow! Even as I read Scotty’s prayer, there was such conviction in my own heart about this! Thank You, Lord, for uncovering this in my life today. – Bill Welte is President and CEO of America’s Keswick
Compass Pointers: The very man who has argued you down, will sometimes be found, years later, to have been influenced by what you said. (Clive Staples) C. S. Lewis
Anchored to the Rock: When I get on my knees, God helps me to stand up to anything.
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