You may have read about the young couple who moved into a new neighborhood and, the next morning while they were eating breakfast, the young woman sees her neighbor hanging washed clothes on the clothesline. “That laundry is not very clean,” she said, “she doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap.”

Her husband looked on, but remained silent. However, every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, the young woman would make the same comments.

About a month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice, clean wash on the line and said to her husband: “Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her how.”

The husband said, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”

And so it is with life: what we see when watching others depends on the purity of the window through which we look. The reality is that we see things not the way they are, but the way we are. Furthermore, to the degree that we are in denial, we will see only what we want to see; will hear only what we want to hear; will expose ourselves only to what we want to be exposed to, and will twist what we see to make it match our distorted perception of reality. Only the truth—brutal self-honesty—will set us free from this self-deception.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please confront me with the truth about me so that I will see myself exactly the way you see me. Please reveal to me any log in my eye that causes me to have distorted vision. Help me to become like Jesus—real and authentic. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Matthew 7:3-4 (NLT).