A section of Jesus’ Bible worth investigating today belongs to the book of Leviticus chapters 12:1 – 13:59. Please, have a look in your Bible at these verses. The bulk of this reading covers the topic of Biblical leprosy and its relationship to ritual impurity. These topics are much too detailed and complex to fully cover in a short article, but we can learn something.
From the reading, you will notice the responsibility of the priests in the diagnosis of this leprous condition. Only they are qualified to do the inspection and make the declaration that a person is ritually impure. A layman cannot do it and the person himself cannot make a decision concerning his condition. I don’t think it’s a stretch to learn the message from this: a person has the ability to see all sorts of blemishes in other people but has a very difficult time seeing those same blemishes in themselves.
Jesus discussed this topic in Matthew 7:1-5. Turn there and read that passage, if you like.
Here, Jesus admonishes those who would correct the faults of others to first look at their own faults. We all have issues and character flaws but tend to judge ourselves in a favorable way and excuse our own issues while harshly judging those same faults in others. I think there is another thing at work in this dynamic.
I propose that God places certain people in our lives to be a mirror. The faults we notice in them are actually a reflection of us. If a particular person has an anger management problem, then perhaps God will put that person in close contact with someone who has the same problem. The hope is that the first person will see just how ugly uncontrolled anger is and realize their own problem. Only then can a person correct himself and perhaps help the other afterward.
I learned this principle years ago from my (at the time) 5-year-old grandson. Even at that age, the young man still had the propensity to have a temper tantrum on occasion. He and his family were at Disney World and he witnessed a young child having the same fit of temper that he was prone to display. He looked at his mother and asked her, “Is that what I look like when I throw a fit?” The answer, of course, was yes. From that day forward, he never did it again. He was impacted by what he had seen in a profound way.
God briefly placed that young child at Disney World in my grandson’s presence to teach him a lesson about himself. I contend that God puts such people in our lives all the time for the same reason. The next time you find that you are bothered by someone else’s faults and issues, I suggest you take stock of yourself. God might just be sending you a message. Can we grown–ups have the wisdom and insight to discern what was so obvious to a 5-year old?
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