Stringing Along

Teen vision is amazing. It’s remarkable to me that a teenager can look directly at the biggest, ugliest mess and totally NOT see it.

“Son, did you clean your room.” “Yeah, Mom, it’s all done.” Then you peek in and see that it’s “all done,” but things are still swarming in there.

I opened my microwave the other day and found a big fat mound of cheese cooked onto the bottom of the microwave. Someone obviously tried to make one of those nacho mountains. But how could you zap Mt. Nacho and not notice it’s doing a volcano thing a couple of minutes in? And then how could you just walk away and leave all the cheese-lava smoldering there? Surely you’d at least notice something was up when you pulled the plate out, got halfway across the kitchen, then realized the plate was still connected to the microwave by a 6-foot stretchy string of cheese. Selective vision.

It’s just as easy to have selective vision in our spiritual lives sometimes, too. Isn’t it so much more pleasant to find a fault in someone else than it is to notice a weakness of our own? I don’t even want to think about how many nacho-type messes I’ve noticed in others while stringing along a 6-foot cheese-rope of my own.

But Jesus can give us a different kind of vision—vision that’s not so quick to dismiss our own messes. He asked in Matthew 7:3-5, “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.”

Jesus’ kind of vision clears those hypocrisies right up. And His kind of vision is the kind that sees the best in others. His vision is filtered through love. First Corinthians 13:5 tells us that real love “is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”

Loving according to the Lord’s example will keep us on the right track and help us to consistently see things more clearly. It’s not only better vision, it’s the best vision. Even if you still completely miss the cheese ropes.

Rhonda Rhea is a radio personality and a conference speaker for events all over the country. She is the wife of First Baptist Church of Troy, Missouri’s pastor, Richie Rhea, and mother of five, two in college and three teens at home. She has authored several fun and fruitful books, including Turkey Soup for the Soul—Tastes Just Like Chicken, Who Put the Cat in the Fridge, I’m Dreaming of Some White Chocolate, and more. Her newest book, High Heels in High Places—Walking Worthy in Way Cute Shoes is scheduled for release this September with more books on the way. Find out more at www.RhondaRhea.net.