😎🐫🎤 Christ’s peace and presence be with you. I had an experience last Friday that caused me to think of two things. 1) Andy Benard from The Office. 2) Matthew 7:1-5. Yep, that probably sounds like an odd combination.
Brian and I were shoveling some mulch into the bed of the truck. The mulch was dry for the most part and it was a little windy, so as we threw the shovels full of mulch, some of the smaller particles blew on us. We finish getting what we wanted, put the shovels in the bed, dusted off, then we were on our way to our next stop. What happened next, I’m not exactly sure, but as we were driving, I think it was a piece of the mulch dust that got into my left eye. First of all, a tiny speck in your eye can be very painful. I waited in the truck, trying to clear my eye while Brian quickly ran into the store. We had one more stop that we wanted to make, but my eye was hurting too much, so we came home to rinse my eye out. That’s where Andy Bernard comes in. On The Office, Andy was trying to break into the acting business and he landed his first acting job in a work safety movie, in which he had to clean his eyes at an eye wash station. I can’t help but laugh thinking about that scene. It certainly was a challenge for Andy, but it helped me realize I had to keep my face down, so that the water and mulch particle could run out of my eye.
As Brian was driving, I was trying not to rub my eye. Actually, I tried to hold my eyelid away from my eye, so that whatever was in my eye wouldn’t scratch it. That was when I started thinking about Matthew 7:1-5,
‘“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “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.’
That little speck sure did feel like a plank in my eye.
Thank God, it was only in my eye for about an hour and there was no injury to my eye. That situation keeps playing over in my mind. 1) I believe God protected us from what might have happened if we would have continued onto the third stop we were planning to make. I also believe one hour of an irritated eye was far less pain than the pain we would have felt otherwise. 2) Everyone has some size of speck in their eye that causes us pain, to see unclearly, and to lash out at others from time to time. I certainly don’t like feeling those things and I imagine you don’t either. But I am once again reminded that it is by God’s grace, mercy, love, and forgiveness that those specks and all the side effects of those specks can be washed away, so that we don’t have to continue living in that pain. Jesus Christ suffered anguish on the cross so that you and I don’t have to feel that pain. His living water, that He poured out for us, is all we need to wash us clean. Thank You Jesus!
Bless others and be blessed.
Shelly :0)
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#Blanca – Even at My Worst
Third Day Devotions 