In each of these situations, it’s so easy to lay the blame with someone else. Why are they nagging me at the end of a long day? Stop invading my personal space!
A friend shared the following illustration this week that had been passed on to him. Say there’s a glass full of water on the table. If you knock the glass, the water spills out. He compared this to the rebelliousness that lurks in the heart of each and every one of us (and which the Bible warns us of, e.g. in Mark 7, Romans 3).
But whether or not you knock the glass, the water is in there. I guess it’s the knocks that bring the water slopping out of the glass and making a mess on the table, or in your life (and the lives of those around you).
So what’s the solution? Putting the glass right in the middle of the table, far from other dishes and elbows? Of course not. We can’t avoid all “knocks” – whether these are in the form of stress, tiredness, difficult personalities, ill health, uncertainty, grief, or something else. It’s not practical, for a start.
But it also doesn’t deal with the problem of the evil that dwells within us whether people see it or not. We know that our inner ugliness exists and that it needs fixing, but it’s often easier to ignore it, and blame others for the mess.
1 John 1:8-9 says this: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
What a great promise in the face of our many and obvious failings. We need to keep on reminding each other of this amazing truth and encouraging one another to live it out!
