Is it just me?

What is it about “me” that makes me “look at myself in rose-tinted glasses, but other people with a microscope.” (Joyce Meyer – Battlefield of the Mind)?

Is it that I don’t realize how much God loves and forgives me and that I can’t therefore see how much God loves and forgives other people? Is it something more fundamental, like pride? Do I think I know better than other people when I don’t and if I do, is it just me who has this problem? We are clearly warned about being hypocrites in the word of God if we fail to see that our own behaviour is wrong whilst we try to offer our opinion about someone else’s behaviour.

How deep does the rabbit hole go? Am I sitting here writing about this issue and in so doing have I accused another man of myopia in his spiritual affairs? Without any doubt this is possible! And what is the cure for this horrendous ill? First to remove the log from my own eye! But how, when I can’t see at all?

By diligently searching the scriptures I am helped only if I do not fall over and blame my fellow man whenever I am specifically mentioned. When God says, for example, “forgive anyone who has hurt you”, he is talking to me and it is my responsibility to forgive, no one else’s. I need to trust God enough to let him deal with the other man, release the offence and by doing that receive the reward for trusting him, so that through the word planted in me I obtain the salvation of my soul.

Forgiving isn’t easy but we’re asked to do it because it restores relationship. Indeed, forgiveness can be as brutal an act as the offense itself and our need for forgiveness necessitated our Lord’s crucifixion. I hope not to have so much to forgive but we are all tested with fire and great acts of obedience won our salvation. In the same way, great acts of forgiveness can restore something which had died and, of course, the opposite is true. Not forgiving can keep dead and even destroy, importantly, someone who God died to make alive. Do we trust our own judgement so much?

There is one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you – who are you to judge your neighbour? (James 4:12) In God’s eyes we all fall short. Maybe it’s time to cut each other some slack?