Pam's Perambulation

³ You can see the speck in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the log in your own eye. ⁴ How can you say, “My friend, let me take the speck out of your eye,” when you don’t see the log in your own eye? ⁵ You’re nothing but show-offs! First, take the log out of your own eye. Then you can see how to take the speck out of your friend’s eye.

⁶ Don’t give to dogs what belongs to God. They will only turn and attack you. Don’t throw pearls down in front of pigs. They will trample all over them.

⁷ Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened for you. ⁸ Everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And the door will be opened for everyone who knocks. ⁹ Would any of you give your hungry child a stone, if the child asked for some bread? ¹⁰ Would you give your child a snake if the child asked for a fish? ¹¹ As bad as you are, you still know how to give good gifts to your children. But your heavenly Father is even more ready to give good things to people who ask.

¹² Treat others as you want them to treat you. This is what the Law and the Prophets are all about.

Oh,
now it’s getting personal,
pointed
directly at me.

Because it is sooooooo tempting
to judge others,
to blame,
to think I know better.

But how do I know?
The motives,
cares,
hopes
of others?
How do I know
what you might be asking of them,
or where you might be leading them?
Who says
I know everything,
or my way is the only way
– or even a way at all.

Yet how much easier to look
at someone else’s faults and failings,
to see them so clearly,
or to think I do…,
than to have to look at myself,
to face the truth in me.
I’d much rather examine their life
than mine;
because if I look closely at me,
I might see what is there,
I might have to do something
about my behaviour,
my attitudes,
my prejudices.
And so I choose not to see.

I don’t treat others
as I would want them to treat me,
and I certainly don’t treat them
as you would.

Forgive me Lord,
lead me not into temptation,
lead me from the place of giving in
to temptation,
to the place of truth,
acceptance
and love;
for myself
and for those around me.

I remain convinced that the struggle we have to accept others, just as they are, is because we struggle to accept ourselves – just as we are.  Yet that is exactly how God takes us.  All that he asks is that we come.  This song gives us the opportunity to do that, to offer all that we are, and all that we are not, to God, for him to work with.  Perhaps if this can be prayed it is a beginning to allow God to work in me, to remove the planks from my life, to refocus – that I may not even see the speck in my friends eye.

Just As I Am – just as my friend is