Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?—Matthew 7:3
A few weeks ago. Late at night. A borrowed apartment kitchen on the other side of the world.
I was tired. The project wasn’t moving. The team member responsible was someone I love.
My instinct was to fire off the email. Why isn’t this moving? The words were already forming in my head when I caught myself. The reason I caught myself wasn’t holiness. It was the calendar. I was teaching a tool the next morning that was designed to interrupt exactly the email I was about to send.
So I closed the draft. I made another cup of coffee in a kitchen that wasn’t mine. I came back and wrote a different email.
His reply landed the next day. He hadn’t been able to deliver the work because I had never given him the numbers he needed. I had never sent him the software access. I had changed the system without telling him.
The speck I had been ready to point at was wearing the face of a log I hadn’t yet acknowledged.
And it caused me to wonder. How often does my frustration with someone else’s performance simply reveal a leadership gap I haven’t owned? How often is the email I am about to send actually a confession waiting to be made first?
The first calling is not toward correcting the brother. It is toward seeing the log. It is toward repentance of self before the preaching of repentance to anyone else.
What conversation are you about to have that you haven’t yet had with yourself?