“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye.” (Matthew 7:3). It can be galling to have someone with a big old beam sticking out of their eye come up to us and tell us that they noticed we've got this little mote in our eye and we would see a lot better if only we were strong or wise enough to remove it. But the thing is, they are right. We do have a mote in our eye and we would see and feel better if we took it out. Rather than feel resentful or ignite the advice of a hypocrite out of principle or out of spite, we ought to have the humility to acknowledge the truth in what they say and if we would truly be like Christ, then we should feel grateful to them for helping us to be better. Ambrose Bierce once defined Christianity as the religion of looking after your neighbor's salvation. It was tongue in cheek but it is nonetheless true that outside observers often can see with more clarity both the problems and suggestions for the possible solutions than we can. This shouldn't come as a surprise because we are naturally disposed to offer unsolicited help in getting the motes out of other people's eyes, even when we know we have a beam in our eye with no inclination to get it out. Alice in Alice in Wonderland, recognized how hard it is to help ourselves. “That's just the trouble with me,I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.” When we can't follow our own advice because we are too close to the situation, then maybe when we hear it from someone else we can choose to follow it. And just maybe as we see others follow our advice and remove the motes from their eyes, then maybe we can find the strength and courage to remove the beams from our eyes. God has blessed His children with a keen eye to find opportunities to improve, even if it is sometimes easier to find those opportunities in others than themselves. We can choose to see the hypocrisy in those who would try to fix our problems when theirs seem so much worse or we can be grateful that there are those who are wise enough and care enough to see what our motes are so that we can remove them and finally see more clearly.
