Today’s post reminded me of the times people hear a great sermon and think, “If only _________ had been here for this!” I mean, it’s never about them, right?
This is from the blog Live Generously, by Brian Kiley, Student Ministries Director at Synergy Church in Santa Barbara, California, where it appeared under the title, No One Ever Thinks They’re A Part of the Problem.
I don’t know that anyone wakes up in the morning and says, “I’m a part of the problem.”
I don’t know of any Christians that wake up in the morning and say, “You know, it’s judgmental, self-righteous hypocrites like me who give Christians a bad name.”
I don’t know of any pastors that wake up in the morning and say, “You know, it’s shallow preachers like me that preach something other than the gospel who are contributing to the massive theological ignorance that exists in the American Church today.”
I don’t know anyone that wakes up in the morning and says, “You know, it’s extremists like me who are destroying any hope for progress and respectful dialog in our political process.”
I don’t know anyone that says any of those things.
However, if I’m completely honest, I know plenty of people, if not personally at leasts through the media, that I would place in all of those categories.
And I’m guessing that you probably do to.
Heck, for all I know there may well be people that would put me in one of the categories.
I bring this up not to suggest that we should all be relativists who do not make moral judgments about beliefs or points of view. Far from it. There are plenty of circumstances that require that. When a man says that God wants us to have our best life now, or a person misuses the name and teachings of Jesus for a political gain that must be called what it is.
I bring this up simply because I need the reminder as much as anyone that Jesus was really on to something when he said we should take care of the plank in our own eye before we worry about the speck in the eye of another. Our overly connected world allows us access to all sorts of points of view and perspectives.
And we can get so busy pointing the finger at perspectives that we find crazy that we forget to do the hard work of humble self-examination in our own lives, and that is problematic for everybody.
~Brian Kiley
