“Why do you look at the speck (mote) of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank (beam) in your own eye?” Matthew 7:3

I’ve been trying to be very careful lately. When my eyes started bothering me a couple months ago, I went to my eye doctor and got an exam. She gave me a prescription, with which I ordered some sunglasses and reading glasses to be able to see FAR AWAY. Now, no matter WHAT I am looking at…I need glasses to see it! But I’m STILL trying to keep track of my glasses?

Seeing and knowing my limitations now also requires notes! I have an app on my phone for that. Since I see and think a lot, it is understandable why I get so flustered when I can’t find my phone or glasses! What makes it worse now is, NOT being able to find them points out some rather large beams and motes stuck in my own eyes and heart! By necessity, I am working on not getting flustered!

Katie put a fish bowl in the middle of the dining room table and threw all of our $1 reading glasses in there. She needs them too, so when we need a pair, we just go to the bowl and grab from about a dozen pair. Strangely, I seem to keep grabbing the same pair…the one that has a flaw on the right lens! It’s right there in the center so I actually have to turn my head to see around it! Which is kind of a funny metaphor for my life right now!

I find the biggest problem is the motes. A mote is like a tiny spec of dust. I never had as much problem with those tiny particles as I do now! I’m not sure if God is pointing them out MORE as I get older or if I just didn’t notice as much before. But paying attention certainly makes life a little easier. Maybe that is the point He is getting across to me.

Paul said it in a way I may never have understood it until now in 2 Corinthians 12… “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Being a grumpy old man is a natural option. And I can see why. But with God at work in my seeing and note taking, I am finding the ‘grumpy’ option to be MUCH more painful than ever before! Maybe I’m learning that I don’t want to have to look around a flaw to see what’s really there. Hmmmmmmm.