Far from a condemnation, Jesus invites me into a deeper understanding of myself. Staying busy making assessments, judgements, and prescriptions to those around me, lets me off the hook of having to look too closely at my own mess. Growing up in a home where a family member criticized, belittled, and yelled as a normal way of communicating, I was conditioned to believe that I would never be good enough. I focused my attention outside of myself instead of inside of myself as a way of protecting that fragile inner child and that painful wound.  Judgement of others became my friend. It helped me suppress and relieve my own feelings of inadequacy and unlovableness by dissecting someone else.

But Jesus is always inviting us to something deeper, a deeper way of relating to him and to those around us, a deeper healing of our own wounds and sins. Cleaning up my own side of the street keeps me focused on my own stuff, on my own heart to see what’s going on there, taking responsibility and being accountable for my own actions, not someone else’s. When I find myself criticizing someone else, I take a pause and look inside to see what I am feeling or avoiding about myself. And then I bring it to Jesus so it can be brought to the light and healed or cast out. When I have removed the beam in my own eye, when I’ve cleaned up my own side of the street, by opening up my messy heart to Jesus and taking the necessary action, only then can I point out my brother’s splinter, by bringing my own testimony of freedom in Christ

Jesus, help me to do the work necessary to keep my own side of the street clean.