Thought I'd share this story
Herman and his wife Lucy never miss church... They're never late and they are always there every Sunday and the same goes for weekly Bible Study too. You probably have seen a couple like this in your church. You may even be like them!
Herman is the laid back type. A hard working man, close to retirement, and never one to complain. Lucy, on the other hand, is the gossiping busy body type. She doesn't have a paying job since Herman's income is pretty good, so she just makes it her business to keep up on everyone else's business.
A young couple moved into the neighborhood, and Lucy invited them to their church. They have been going there for a few weeks now and seem like a pretty nice couple as far as everyone can tell. Besides, if they weren't nice, Lucy would have already told the whole town. She keeps a close eye on them.
One morning while they are eating breakfast, Lucy happened to see the young woman outside hanging the wash out to dry. "Well! That laundry is not very clean", she exclaimed to Herman. "That silly girl doesn't even know how to wash correctly." she said as she was standing at her kitchen sink. "Perhaps she just needs better laundry soap." Said Herman.
Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, Lucy would make the same sort of degrading comments, and she even told a few of the other ladies in the women's Bible study group. Even though Lucy would have strong words of criticism most every day, she would never go over and offer her assistance. She would rather sit there in the comfort of her 'glass home' and throw stones at the neighbor. And every time it happened, ol' Herman would look on, but he would still remain silent.
About one month later, Lucy was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: "Well what do you know, she finally learned how to do the darn laundry correctly! I wonder who taught her this?"
Herman said, "I don't know dear, but I got up a little early this morning and cleaned our windows."
And so it is with life. What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look.
The Bible tells us to remove the beam from our eye when we tell our brother to remove the speck from his eye. (Luke 6:39-42) This doesn't mean we should not judge. We should. Judge a man by his fruit. It is good to know what not to do. But be sure that as you do this, you will also be judged in the same way. Can you handle it? Either way, it is impossible for us to judge what is on the inside of any man. That is something only God can do.
No matter what, we must love. It is easy to judge someone else, because we never judge ourselves on the same standard. We also never love someone the way God does, and the way He wants us to.
No comments:
Post a Comment