My Planks

So this morning for some reason (back to this later) I was prompted to review some Scriptures I had previously memorized back in high school. Low and behold I come to the first part of Matthew 7 - what I call the plank verses. As soon as I began reading them, I knew God needed to get a message through to me.

He has been dealing with me about righteousness, not His righteousness but SELF-righteousness...mine. There you have it. Sweet lil' Susy has self-righteousness, pride issues. What's sad is that my poor husband has to put up with most of it.

See I tend to um, be 'real proud' (in the not-good way) of ALL the stuff I can do and how little everyone else can do. Yeah, that's one of the uglies of me.

Nathan puts up with it and knows that eventually I'll come down to earth and realize who I am (or am not), but one day he just had enough. I'll never forget it. We were heading home after spending the day house-hunting, and I started it - telling him oh, of how much I was doing and how much he wasn't. "I'm going to school, working a full-time job, AND a part-time job. On top of that, I can keep a 4.0 GPA, a clean house, AND a social life." TOP THAT! Boy did he.

I knew that I was wrong for intentionally trying to put him down and hurt him (I know. I'm awful). I knew what I was doing.

This time my great husband didn't take it. He politely said, "Susy, just because you do all of these things doesn't mean that you're better than me or anyone else. Choosing to busy yourself isn't a sign of godlyness."

I started to defend myself (by the way, defensiveness and never admitting mistakes is another sign of my self-righteousness) with, "I'm not saying I'm better..." But he was right on target.

Wow, this has gone into a different direction...well, all that to say that this pride thing is not pretty. Who in the world do I think I am looking down on people that way? As Matthew says, I must first take the PLANK out of my eye to help remove the speck from my brother's eye. You know, a plank is a large piece of timber, while a speck is a speck. It probably means that this issue of mine might be a bit larger than that lil' piece of lint I see in others.

How in the world does Jesus put up with our planks?

What a Savior we have in Him!