Easy On Me, Tough On You

"You're the small blind," we said the other night to a man at our left as we shuffled the cards to deal.

"I know I am," the man said with annoyance in his voice.  "I've had a bad day, and I don't like to be rushed."

We apologized to that man -- then moments later, he spoke up to a player sitting to our right.  "Are you going to play or what?!"

We sat in the middle, struck by the situation.  "What did you just say a moment ago?"

"Are you going to play or what?!"

"No, I mean before that."

"I don't like to be rushed."

Did you catch how curious that sounded?  The man who didn't like other people to rush him turned around and tried to rush somebody else!  It's a classic disconnect -- like the people who might say, "Do as I say, but not as I do."

There's a word for this kind of behavior in the Bible, and it's not a very nice one.  Jesus explained it this way:

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?  How can you say to your brother, "Let me take the speck out of your eye," when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite....- Matthew 7:3-5

Let's be honest -- all of us can have "plank-eye" moments.  We can become annoyed at the driver zipping by us on the freeway, while ignoring the fact that we're ten miles over the speed limit.  We can be stunned at the items in an overweight woman's grocery basket, while our own cart contains cookies and soda bottles.

One dictionary defines a hypocrite as "one who pretends to be better than he really is, or pious, virtuous, etc. without really being so."  Poker games can have moments like that, of course -- if players bet big with nothing more than Jack high, hoping to look superior and run everyone else off a pot.  While that's part of the game, Jesus does NOT want that approach to be part of our lives.  Let's let the Lord finish:

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

A gospel song puts it like this: "Sweep around your own front door, before you try to sweep around mine."  So we didn't act like Dr. Phil, and correct the man to our left for his contradictory conduct.  But we hope the testimony of his own words made him stop and think.  We all need to apply Jesus's "golden rule" instruction.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets. - Matthew 7:12

Even though we're Christian, we don't go to the poker table ready to shout "Sin!" and point fingers of accusation.  But we also don't go in with defensive walls so thick that we can't be corrected ourselves.  As that song points out:

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.... - Romans 3:23

Pray for God to show you the planks in your eyes.  Then repent of them, and seek God's help in removing them -- without tossing them so hard in the direction of other people that you cause more damage.