Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mac . I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five-minute start to your day . So grab your cup of coffee , sit back , relax and let me help you start your day right . The year was 1963 . Mark and Carolyn Wright had just purchased their very first home .
It was small and it was anything but new , but to them it was a mansion . It was their very first place and they were so excited to have a home that was their own .
They spent the first few days trying to just sort things out and get things into the right rooms and putting it together , and eventually they were able to have their very first breakfast together in their new kitchen . As they were eating , carolyn looked out their window across the fence and saw their neighbor hanging up her laundry on the wash line to dry .
Carolyn took a second look and then she said that laundry is not very clean . She obviously doesn't know how to wash it properly and maybe she needs to get a better laundry soap . I don't know , but that's not very good over there . Mark just nodded his head but stayed quiet Over the next couple of weeks every time that their neighbor hung out laundry .
Carolyn said the same thing . That laundry just looks filthy . I don't understand how she can even hang it up to dry . She's obviously not doing something right . This went on for several more weeks . About a month later , carolyn was surprised to look out her window and see , for the very first time , clean and bright laundry hanging on the neighbor's line .
She turned to Mark . Look , she's finally learned how to wash that stuff properly . I wonder who taught her how to do that . Mark turned the page of his newspaper and said I got up early this morning and I cleaned our windows . And so it is with life . What we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look .
Isn't that true ? It's human nature to judge people based upon our perspectives , upon what we think is right . We can guarantee that our own perspectives are not always completely right either , as much as we would like to think that they are . Jesus actually taught us about this in the Sermon on the Mount In Matthew , chapter 7, .
Jesus is teaching and he said Do not judge so that you will not be judged , for in the way you judge you will be judged , and by your standard of measure it will be measured to you . Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye but you do not notice the log that is in your own eye ?
Or how can you say to your brother let me take that speck out of your eye and behold , the log is in your own eye , you hypocrite . First take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye .
In some ways , jesus is saying mind your own business and get yourself right before you go around correcting anybody else . We often think that our way is the right way and so we want to correct everybody else around us about the right way to do things .
A few years back I was counseling a young married couple who were going through some difficulties , and one of the major areas of contention was that he kept putting the toilet paper on the roll the wrong way around .
She said the toilet paper had to be able to roll off the front , whereas he had always grown up with it where the toilet paper rolled off of the back of the roll , closest to the wall .
This had become a major contention and it is very true that this was simply a symptom of many of the other things that were going on in their relationship , but it became a focal point for some of their anger and frustration with each other . In both of the stories today , the negative responses came as a result of people not seeing clearly what was going on .
In the arguments with the young couple , that argument came up simply because of the differences in how they were raised . It wasn't that one was right and one that was wrong . In Carolyn's story , it wasn't that the neighbor wasn't doing her job , it was just how she was seeing it .
But the end result was that there was unjust criticism in both of those stories . The log that is in our own eye that Jesus spoke about is not just something that's a major sin or a major problem . It's often an attitude or an expectation because of how we were raised .
It's often things that are small , that we let get under our skin , that make us very critical of the people around us . As we start this week , we have the opportunity to decide how we are going to react to the people around us who see things differently than we do , and when they say or do something that's different , we need to decide .
Is this something I need to challenge or is this something that really doesn't make any difference ?
Challenges about the truth of God and His Word we need to stand up for , but there are so many times right now when people of opposing ideas or perspectives get into heated exchanges and arguments simply because they don't see eye to eye on something that's actually very minor .
We need to be able to choose our disagreements wisely and make sure that when we take a stand , it's over something that really , truly is important . Make that choice today for this week not to get drawn into those arguments that really don't matter , but to let your light shine for Christ , full of joy and peace and strength , and let God work through you .
Have a great day , my friends . We'll talk again tomorrow . Thank you for listening today and I invite you to join me Monday to Friday , right here on Starting Right with Danny Mac .