Seeing Our Own Mistakes

One of the most difficult things for us to see is our own mistakes. We can often see the faults of others clearly while remaining strangely blind to our own. We notice someone else’s impatience, pride, harsh words, or poor choices, yet somehow find reasons to excuse the same things in ourselves.

Jesus used the picture of eyesight to teach us an important spiritual truth. He spoke of a man trying to remove a tiny speck from another person’s eye while having a beam in his own. The problem was not that the speck did not need to be removed. The problem was that he could not properly help someone else until he had first dealt honestly with himself.

It takes humility to look in the mirror of God’s Word and say, “Lord, show me where I am wrong.” Our natural tendency is to defend ourselves, explain our actions, and point to what others have done. But spiritual maturity means allowing God to reveal the things in our own hearts that we would rather not see.

Sometimes God allows us to see our own mistakes through the very things that irritate us in others. The attitude that bothers us may be an attitude we have displayed. The words that hurt us may remind us of words we have spoken. The weakness we criticize may expose a weakness we have refused to acknowledge.

We should never be afraid of seeing our faults. God already knows them. When He reveals them, it is not to destroy us but to transform us. “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts” (Psalm 139:23). A person who is willing to see his own mistakes is a person who can grow.

Before we ask God to change someone else, perhaps we should ask Him to change us. Before we point out another person’s failure, we should look carefully at our own lives. And before we try to correct someone else’s vision, we should make sure our own eyes are clear.