“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.” – Matthew 7:3-5 (NIV)
How easily do you see the specks in other’s eyes? Do you have a plank in your own? What is Jesus trying to teach here? Do we have ears to hear?
A couple of days ago I was having one bad day. I suppose we all have them, those days where things seem to pile up. It started off good enough, but when I finally got to my computer and opened up my e-mail I was greeted with loads of bad news.
By the time I finished reading through those e-mails I was quite upset. I was upset with how people act, I was upset with what people don’t do, and I was going about blaming people for it.
In the course of being upset I found some angry music to listen to on my phone. I thought, “Good something to help me feel how I feel.” I listened to such music for about half an hour or so until my phone received a call. It was not a happy phone call either and I was beginning to feel overwhelmed with frustration.
After the phone call I pushed the button to resume my angry music selection and yet something else came on instead. It was a gospel song and maybe you know it. A grand voice cried out, “It’s me, it’s me, it’s me O Lord standing in the need of prayer.”
How that song got on I do not know… perhaps it was one of those minor miracles we call a coincidence. I call it a miracle and it forced me to stop worrying about others and realize that I have a lot to change about myself before I can go worrying about how others need to change.
That is what Jesus was concerned about as he spoke about planks in eyes. It becomes so easy for us to look at the obvious faults of others that we can somehow ignore our own obvious faults completely. I was not taking time realizing I needed to change. Instead I allowed my anger to keep me wondering why everyone else was so messed up. Somehow through a minor miracle that others might call a glitch of technology I realized that indeed I stood and still stand in the need of prayer myself. If we all take the time to work on ourselves, I cannot imagine the ways in which we can change the world.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Showing posts with label anger. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anger. Show all posts
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Where is God When We Cry
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest. – Psalm 22:1-2 (NRSV)
Have you ever felt like crying out like this? What was going on in your life? How bad was it? Where was God when you made this cry? Did this cry ever pass?
The following story has been sent to me before, and I have since discovered that it is a Fred Craddock story.
Nettie and I got acquainted in Chautauqua, New York, with a minister who had no arms. He was born with nothing from here. No arms. He was telling us one day there at Chautauqua the experience of learning to put on his own clothes without any arms. He said his mother always dressed him, and he’d gotten to be a pretty big boy. She fed him, she dressed him, she fed him, she dressed him. One day she put his clothes in the middle of the floor and said, “Dress yourself.”
He said, “I can’t dress myself, I don’t have…”
She said, “You’ll have to dress yourself,” and she left the room.
He said, “I kicked, I screamed, I kicked, I screamed, I yelled, ‘You don’t love me anymore!’ Finally, I realized that, if I were to get any clothes on, I’d have to get my clothes on.” After hours of struggle, he got some clothes on. He said, “It was not until later that I knew my mother was in the next room crying.”
I don’t know if God distances God’s self from us, but I know sometimes we feel distant.
Maybe God seems far away because there are times that God wants to make sure we know we can do what seems impossible to us. God isn’t really far away at all, just waiting for us to figure out that we can do things we never knew we could. So we cry out in our anger and our pain until we cannot cry anymore. Then looking at whatever obstacle is in front of us we charge ahead. And that is the answered prayer. Not that God does it for us, but that God just lets us be long enough to figure out that we can do it for ourselves, that we are stronger than we ever knew, that we are capable of the impossible, and God knows what else. So let cry our cries and shout our shouts, sooner or later we may find out that God was there the whole time.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest. – Psalm 22:1-2 (NRSV)
Have you ever felt like crying out like this? What was going on in your life? How bad was it? Where was God when you made this cry? Did this cry ever pass?
The following story has been sent to me before, and I have since discovered that it is a Fred Craddock story.
Nettie and I got acquainted in Chautauqua, New York, with a minister who had no arms. He was born with nothing from here. No arms. He was telling us one day there at Chautauqua the experience of learning to put on his own clothes without any arms. He said his mother always dressed him, and he’d gotten to be a pretty big boy. She fed him, she dressed him, she fed him, she dressed him. One day she put his clothes in the middle of the floor and said, “Dress yourself.”
He said, “I can’t dress myself, I don’t have…”
She said, “You’ll have to dress yourself,” and she left the room.
He said, “I kicked, I screamed, I kicked, I screamed, I yelled, ‘You don’t love me anymore!’ Finally, I realized that, if I were to get any clothes on, I’d have to get my clothes on.” After hours of struggle, he got some clothes on. He said, “It was not until later that I knew my mother was in the next room crying.”
I don’t know if God distances God’s self from us, but I know sometimes we feel distant.
Maybe God seems far away because there are times that God wants to make sure we know we can do what seems impossible to us. God isn’t really far away at all, just waiting for us to figure out that we can do things we never knew we could. So we cry out in our anger and our pain until we cannot cry anymore. Then looking at whatever obstacle is in front of us we charge ahead. And that is the answered prayer. Not that God does it for us, but that God just lets us be long enough to figure out that we can do it for ourselves, that we are stronger than we ever knew, that we are capable of the impossible, and God knows what else. So let cry our cries and shout our shouts, sooner or later we may find out that God was there the whole time.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
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