Dec
1
Biting Your Tail
Filed Under Devotional
Sometimes I feel like I’m mentally running after the sinner so I can tell him the truth about his sin only to be surprised when I catch him because he is me. Like a dog yelping when he bites his own tail, I’m startled to find myself when that was the last person I was expecting to see.
I was wound up tonight about something someone said to me that felt like it undermined my position in front of someone else. I was going to rail on about how awkward that was for me and how selfish it is for another person to put me in that position. I was planning on using this verse:
“But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.” James 3:14-16
Yelp! There I was! I was being bitter and selfish in the way I was thinking about the situation. Once again, I was more worried about how obedient the other person was being rather than myself.
Jesus meant it when He said:
“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 7:3-5
I bit my tail hard, today.