CREEDE HINSHAW: Taking a chainsaw to the ‘fallen logs’ in my eyes

Almost every day I drive past a certain Macon property and wince. Out of respect for this particular person (who I don’t even know!), I won’t go into detail about the state of that person’s property. It is enough, perhaps, to admit that my conclusions about this family are uncharitable.

That, at least, is the harsh conclusion of this columnist. And the only reason I want to write about this situation is because of my own sinful assessment.

For more than a few years I have thought to myself, when driving this particular route, how much better that raggedy property would look if I were there. I have thought of improvements and adjustments I would make that would make a vast difference.

But this week as I drove past that property, a voice came to me loud and clear. And although I did not audibly hear the words, I did hear and perceive a message that I should have heard long, long ago.

The words that came abruptly and decisively were these: “What about that back door on your porch you’ve been meaning to fix for months now? What about that eave that allows rainwater to pour down on your back step rotting the wood around the door? What about that fallen tree in your front yard you have intended to take care of with your chainsaw?”

My concern is that God has been speaking these very words to me every time I have a judgmental thought about this other piece of property, but this week was the first time that God somehow got through to me. And the message was prophetic, stern and right on target: Quit obsessing over somebody else’s property when you have dozens of unfinished, avoided projects at your own house.

I drove on to work chastened, upbraided and found guilty. It is so very easy to scorn other people, their children, their accents, their wardrobes, their property or even their pets. Most of us slip into this sin so easily we don’t even realize we’re doing it.

The lesson I re-learned this week was the absolute necessity of not judging other people. I had been concerned about some trees on their property that needed attention. Instead of that, I needed, in the words of Jesus, to be concerned about the logs in my own eyes. (Matthew 7:3)

The sad truth is that these words about judging others are not new or unfamiliar to me. I’ve known them most of my life and preached on them countless times. But I was reminded this week that God’s piercing judgment on my life is always fresh, always decisive, sometimes very brutal. It’s not as if I can go back to scorning this person’s property after I get my own projects finished. No. To judge others in order to put oneself in a superior position is always a sin.

I’m grateful I heard the truth again this week and am praying I can continue to apply it. I’ve got a whole forest of fallen logs in my eyes.