Don’t you realize that in a race everyone runs, but only one person gets the prize? So run to win! All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others I myself might be disqualified.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
Dear God, I’m such a self-centered human! I read this passage this morning (part of the New Testament reading for the Catholic Church), and I immediately started thinking about the prominent pastors or national leaders who preach morality and then get found out for some egregious sin–often the very thing they were preaching against. I started harboring resentment and judgment for them. How could they do such a thing?!?
Then I read part of the Gospel reading from Luke 6:
41 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 42 How can you think of saying, ‘Friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.
Oh yeah. Jesus warned me I would be tempted to do this. He warned that I would want to find the faults in others without self-examination and repentance.
I have a woman who works with me who has a tremendous amount of compassion. I have to be careful how I say this because of patient privacy issues and I’m praying publicly, but I’ll just say she went way, way out of her way last night for a client of our nonprofit, and I was questioning whether she was giving too much of herself. Was she crossing a self-care line. I wasn’t angry with her or judging her, but I was concerned for her. Then she sent back a report to some of us about how the client was blessed at a deep soul level from her visit. It warmed my heart. It broke my heart. It also made me ask myself if I would have done what she did if I had been in her place last night, or if I would have made the client wait.
Father, my point is that I can judge others for being selfish, when I can be incredibly selfish. I can judge others for being indifferent so suffering when I can be very indifferent to suffering. The list goes on. Let me start with mercy and forgiveness for others. Let me start with grace. Then, Holy Spirit, help me to search my own heart and get rid of the sins that reside and are deeply ingrained. I’m sorry, Father. I really am. I’m mostly sorry that, even when I sit down in these times with you, my first impulse when I read scripture is to judge someone else instead of hearing it as if it were written for me.
I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,
Amen
