Help! Love, MOM

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 7:2-3

Confession time.
I admit that, there are moments when, especially when I drive, I am not at my spiritual, Christianly best.

Oh and if not for the mercy of God I would have earned some pricey just “rewards” from the NYPD based on my less than lawful, behind-the-wheel behaviors!

So you would be justified in thinking that a person

• so wonderfully,
• so mercifully,
• so carefully and divinely kept from disaster by the good and gracious LORD would in turn be merciful.

Nah! Not Christianly me.

The other day, a sublime spring afternoon here in NYC, I watched flowers grow while I crept along in traffic near the NY Botanical Garden.

Do you think that another driver, attempting to enter “my” lane, encountered a welcome from me? Did I kindly make way for my new lane buddy?

Nah. Not Christianly me. NO.

What I did do was to actively block their entrance. That “I” beam, man occupied lots of space in my car, my lane, my heart.

The driver ALMOST made it in a couple of times. But I was too mean spirited for that. I beam for the win!! (God help me.)

Picture it. I’m inching along in traffic so slow I can almost see buds pop out on the branches I pass but what I did was to ACTIVELY WORK AGAINST allowing another driver into the flow.

At the moment, I thought something like, “I would NEVER let someone cut in on me. NEVER.”

My reason for these foolish thoughts?

I’m glad you asked.

Just me indulging the folly of my inner, I beam and omniscient idol.

You likely did not know, but, in my head, I know exactly why YOU do what you do.

So I “knew” that the driver thought they were going to deliberately get into the wrong lane (which had more traffic so whyyyyy a person would – ON PURPOSE – choose that lane makes no sense) to again deliberately and pre-emptively barge into “my” faster lane (I mentioned that traffic was creeping right?).

Something like nutty like that.

God forbid that a person might be in front of me as our cages, so sorry, cars plodded past the cherry trees.

It’s hard to imagine that a person, attempting to attend a tourist attraction like the NY Botanical Gardens might have gotten into the wrong lane accidentally.

OK. Now picture it.

About an hour or so later; I’m still driving but this time at highway speeds, nothing crazy, about 55, 60 mph, so not very fast but fast enough.

Needing to access a highway from a different route than the one I usually take, I drove along as if I was heading home forgetting that, in fact, I was not.

Have you ever done it, drove on memory but not on your current destination and present moment? How did that work for you?

As for me I could have wrecked my car and lives as I tried to correct myself into the needed lane, across a divider, aaand across another lane of traffic: but no one let me in.

While I’m doing this delicately, daring and, possibly danger-laced dance into the fast lane I am, at the same time, distracted by the earlier mental replay near the Gardens when I WOULD NOT offer even the merest drop of mercy to that driver.

I finally saw that fat plank in my eye! Typing right now I am still shaking my head at my foolishness and at God’s kindness and mercy toward me. GLORY!

At the memory I was (and am) ashamed of needing from God and my fellow drivers the very mercy I, not miserly rationed, but mercilessly refused to give but for which I was so desperately now searching.

While making my illegal crossing I also asked God to kindly forgive my hardheartedness so vividly on display. A jackass could not have brayed at me any louder.

In the meantime, I pray that more illegal crossings meet with God’s mercy from merciful followers of Christ.

Lord forgive me for all the times and spaces, where I am prone to pride, unforgiveness and lack of mercy. Help me to remember that my ability to forgive is not based on any worthiness on the other person. But my ability to forgive is based on the fact that I have already freely received full forgiveness from God through Christ’s sacrifice. Help me also LORD, to eject, to cast out the wicked beams and planks in my own heart. I want to be completely yours.

In Jesus’s name, Amen

Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy. Matthew 5:7 NIV