The Measuring Stick

The longer I walk with God, the more I realize I don’t need a measuring stick for other people.

I need one for myself.

Because the places where I struggle to give grace often reveal the places where I still need grace.

Jesus said to remove the beam from our own eye first.

Not because He wanted us blind.

But because He wanted us humble.

Because humble people see differently.

They see people the way God sees them.

Not as projects, problems, or labels.

But as sons and daughters still being formed by grace.

The truth is, we all have blind spots.

We all have convictions, experiences, traditions, and wounds that shape how we see others.

The danger comes when we begin measuring people by our standards instead of God’s love.

When our convictions become the measuring stick.

When our experiences become the measuring stick.

When our preferences become the measuring stick.

And sometimes when we begin judging someone’s relationship with the Lord by standards we can’t clearly find in His Word.

The problem isn’t that we notice weaknesses in other people.

The problem is that we often measure their weaknesses by a different standard than we measure our own.

We can have tremendous grace for the places where we struggle and very little grace for the places where someone else struggles.

Not because their sin is greater.

Not because their weakness is worse.

It just looks different than ours.

That is a hard truth.

I’ve seen it.

I’ve lived it.

I’ve done it.

More than once.

The longer I walk with God, the more I realize that mercy sees differently.

Mercy remembers there is a story it cannot see.

A battle it does not understand.

A wound it did not experience.

A place where God may be working in ways it cannot recognize.

Because God sees what we cannot.

He sees the wounds, the battles, the questions, and the disappointments.

He sees the places where a person is still becoming.

And He never stops pursuing them.

The danger isn’t that we stop seeing sin.

The danger is that we stop seeing people.

Jesus never ignored sin.

But He never reduced people to it either.

He saw beyond the surface.

He saw the heart.

He saw the struggle.

He saw the future.

And He responded with both truth and grace.

Honestly, the older I get, the less interested in deciding who’s doing Christianity right.

I’m far more interested in finding Jesus in people I almost missed because they didn’t look like me.

The measuring stick was never meant to point outward.

It was meant to point inward.

To remind us of how much grace we’ve received.

And how much grace we still need.

Because mercy changes the way we see people.

And when we begin seeing people through the eyes of Christ, we discover there is usually more to their story than we know.