In today’s first reading from Genesis 12, God tells seventy-five year old Abram to pick up everything he owned (which was a lot) and move to a strange new place. “Abram went as the Lord directed him.” Are you sometimes afraid of change? Me, too. And imagine at Abram’s age! May we always have the faith of Abraham.
In the Gospel reading today from Matthew 7, Jesus talks with His disciples about pointing out the splinter in a brother’s eye while not even noticing the wooden beam in your own eye. Seems strange, doesn’t it? I mean, how can we not know that we have a huge beam in our own eye? Let me give it a crack.
Have you ever had a long-standing wound or injury? At first it hurts a lot. But over time, our senses get dulled and we become accustomed to the pain. Same principle here. As we keep our beams in our eyes, our vision adjusts (though it is flawed and imperfect) and after a while we don’t even notice it anymore. It becomes part of us. That’s when we have to ask God to show us our beam anew and ask him to remove it. When we allow him to, it will be painful. But the eternal blessings will far outweigh the temporary pain.
Father, you know we can no longer see our own beam. Show it to us, then remove it from our eye, that our vision may return. Amen.
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