Slivers

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Matt 7:3-5)

I must admit that sometimes I fail to see the log in my own eye because I perceive it to be a speck.

As I jogged this week, there was a nagging pebble in my shoe that I couldn’t find, but I knew it was there. It reminded me of days hunting out West when the smallest of thorns stuck in a sock were the most annoying and sometimes painful inhibitors to a journey.

Then God spoke to me through the writing of one of my coaches, Randy Corbin, as he wrote, “For most, if not for all of us, temptation to yield to the logs and boulders of sin has been drained of influence years ago. Rob the bank down the street – nah, I don’t think so. Take the life of the annoying trumpet player next door – you got to be crazy! Run off with the clerk at the gas station – where did you ever get that idea!…..Yet, have we forgotten the powerful damage the motes can cause?”

Ah, those slivers of a little pride, a slice of jealousy, a seemingly insignificant fear of someone’s opinion, a tiny “white lie” or untrue exaggeration, a lustful look that leaves no victim but ourselves, a small bit of gossip…..yet the Bible warns us about the “little foxes” that ruin the vine of our lives (Song of Songs 2:15).

Then I read a devotional from Stephen Bly, a cowboy who has inspired me. He spoke of the Texas Longhorn steers making a comeback out west because of their leaner meat and ability to handle scruffy locations. They are afraid of nothing…except heel flies. Heel flies are tiny bugs that sting cattle in the tender part of the leg, just above the hoof, where they lay eggs. Heel flies can cause even tough old longhorns to scatter in panic, in search of water or bog holes to escape their torment. Tiny insects that can drive cows wild—-like those tiny sins that can drive us crazy too. The quicker we learn to recognize temptations and sins when they are just pinpricks, the more abundant our life will be.

The little slivers, specks, splinters, and heel flies of sin contain the potential to rob us of growing more and more into the likeness of Jesus. Sin specks and nasty little bug sins can cause us to become more and more driven by the flesh and less fashioned by the Spirit. I don’t want to miss the opportunity to be beautiful with Christ, looking less and less like me and more and more like Him. God forgive me for every moment I fail to see the little sins as they really are.