Seeing the Need

"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"

Matthew 7:3

Amy needs her light bill paid. Now! It is past due and they are about to turn it off. If she can just pay it, things will turn out just fine...

When someone comes to us with needs, they simply want them addressed. They know that they are hungry because they hear their stomachs growl. They know that they need a place to stay, because they are cold at night. It is clear to them that their car lacks gas, because it is on empty. But what about the needs they cannot see, those that, to them, simply do not exist?

As someone who cannot remember a time when I was not going to church, who grew up memorizing scripture and praying before bedtime, it is all too easy for me to see these invisible needs. I saw them in myself, and so asked Jesus into my heart ...about 12 times. My sins are all too clear to me. Day after day, they just keep coming back. I neglect reading my Bible. I complain about teaching Sunday school to rambunctious 4 year-olds. I harden my heart against others. I think thoughts that should never be thought. I sin against my God daily!

But you know what I am really good at? I am really, really good at seeing the "needs" of others. What they seem to miss, I am sure to see. Why can't they see that what they are wearing is so immodest? Isn't it clear to them that they should not be addicted to tobacco? If they would only work 60 hours a week, they could get out of this financial crisis.

I am all too humbled by my own thoughts. Though I have set out to help someone in need, I am debilitated by my own inability to understand them and to love them as Christ! I am so concerned with "making them see" that I do not realize that my confidence is unfounded, the blind leading the blind.

Maybe what we both need is to just know Christ, fully.