Messy House, Clean Heart: A 5(ish)-Day Reading Plan From Dana K. Whiteಮಾದರಿ

Day 5: Helping Others When You’re Not Perfect

Read Matthew 7:3–5.

What do the speck and the log/plank represent in this passage?

Why does Jesus use the harsh term “hypocrite” in this passage?

Reflect: Reflect on a situation in your life where you have avoided helping or supporting someone else because you felt inadequate or imperfect. How might acknowledging your own imperfections and sharing your personal experiences impact your ability to empathize and assist others?

Jesus couldn’t have put it any more plainly: “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” (Matthew 7:5).

Clutter is a “wonderful” real life example that reminds me again and again how much easier it is to see someone else’s problem while ignoring my own. It’s easy to see my husband’s “treasures” as trash while holding onto the broken hairclip I wore to prom in 1992. Making real change in my home, though, came from focusing on my own stuff and getting real about what I was doing and not doing.

Identifying my own hypocrisy is necessary to make real change, but fear of hypocrisy can sometimes make me hold back on helping others. The solution? Honesty.

I finally made real changes in my home, but then, I resisted helping others because I could never (and can never) get it perfect. Waiting on or wishing for my own perfection can be a fantastic excuse for not helping someone else.

But God showed me that what I learned during my own plank removal was useful to help others. I’d experienced firsthand the impossible, the awkward, the uncomfortable, and the downright painful of getting my house under control, and some people needed to hear from someone who understood.

When I was blogging my deslobification process, I saw how people were helped more by watching my plank removal than by feeling like their specks were being pointed out. If I wrote, “When you have a busy night with three kids in three different activities and you’re exhausted by the time you get home, sometimes it literally does not even cross your mind that the sink is full of dirty dishes,” some readers were offended.

I know I’m talking about myself, and technically, the reader knows that too. But people’s reaction to the sentence above was very different from their reaction when I wrote it this way: “When I have a busy night with three kids in three different activities and I’m exhausted by the time I get home, sometimes it literally does not even cross my mind that the sink is full of dirty dishes.”

Same sentence. Same meaning. Very different visceral reaction. When I spoke only for myself by using “I” and “my,” people commented in solidarity. They shared lots of “Oh, my word, I’m exactly the same way!” responses. When I used “you” and “your” language, many fewer said “me too” and some were offended.

My own log needed to be removed from my eye. Acknowledging it and digging it out wasn’t fun, but living without a log in my eye feels amazing. And being honest about my log goes much further in helping other people who watch me get it out.

Respond: Consider one practical step you can take to offer help to someone else this week, even if you haven't yet achieved your own definition of perfection. How can the act of embracing your own struggles encourage and inspire those around you?

Prayer: Heavenly Father, by your grace and strength, enable me to see any logs in my eye that need to be removed. I trust your gentle, loving, cleansing power to do so. Amen.