His Heart My Heart Your Heart: April 8, 2009 A Path with Trash

What a complicated, perplexing, journey down a path that is straight and narrow but cluttered with debris which we alone have the choice to look at or keep our eyes at the end of the path where we see God's Light. The gate is small and the path is narrow, maybe it isn't so much as wandering off the path as much as it is stumbling over trash that is thrown on the path. It becomes a matter of kicking it off to the side where it belongs then the small gate at the end becomes visible for us to enter.

We really are all on the path to life, how can I judge someone in front of me, or behind me, or next to me when we are all stumbling on the debris. Instead we walk with each other to the gate and if someone can't see because of the piled up trash, we can show them the way to 'take out the trash' so the Light in the gate is visible. It came to me, how can we possibly see something so small when we can't see something so big? The beam gives us a blinding headache and the speck stings. Our individual walk and journey is sacred and precious and no one else can walk our walk for us. No one ever said (or should have said) it would be easy, but together we can encourage each other and help each other when the trash piles up too high.

Matthew 7:1 Do not judge so that you will not be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 "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? 4 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? 5 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. 6 "Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces. 7 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. 13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

This trash on the road is an illusion of comfort, don't sit down it's a trap...