3 And why beholdest
thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that
is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou
say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a
beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite,
first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly
to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
(New Testament | Matthew 7:3 - 5)
I do believe that this verse of scripture is the key to happiness. This morning while I was saying my prayers I was thinking
about the need for all of us to repent of our own sins and to humble ourselves
and take responsibility for them and to give up constantly blaming others for whatever goes wrong in our lives. My
mind opened to this scripture and the understanding of it’s great
importance. Our frustration or pride or
insecurities so often inform our actions and reactions, our judgments and
perceptions of others. We blatantly or
subtly shift the blame to others to account for our own frustrations, weaknesses,
failures and decisions. This is such a
universal pattern in both large and small ways and it keeps us from greatness
in our lives. The act of blaming others is a severe impediment to our progress
and it blinds us from what we can do to move forward, to alter our situations
and to just be happy. It is Satan’s lie
that accepting our own faults and failures as ours and taking responsibility
for them will make us miserable. In
actuality, it empowers us and frees us and allows us to not be victimized by the
actions and choices of other and ourselves.
We victimize ourselves when we do not accept responsibility, forgive,
forget, move forward in truth no matter what happens around us. We need to own up, embrace our own sins, acknowledge our weaknesses and come unto Christ and work with Him to have our hearts changed in whatever way is needed. Blaming others only sets us back and damns our progress.
