Ok, I admit it. It’s not a normal title for a website, but then again, it’s my hope that this won’t be a normal everyday collection of musings. My dream is that these insights and writings will provide the fuel for nothing short of life change, but I digress…  The inspiration for the name comes straight from Jesus as He’s asking, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”  – Matthew 7:3-5 (ESV)

The question is a question of motivation, “Why do you want to help everyone else but not yourself?” It isn’t an easy question because it forces one to stop pointing at others and do the messy, hard, work of introspection, which, let’s admit, can get messy in a hurry. For example, “Why do I focus on issues in someone else’s’ life but ignore the issues in my own? Well, for one, it’s much easier to see the pimple on their nose than to see it on mine – I guess one could make the case that I’m a little lazy (ouch). Then there’s the challenge of responsibility. If I ignore my own stuff and pretend that the pimple isn’t there (even though it hurts, and is swollen, and red, with a big fat whitehead on it) then I don’t have to do the hard work of personal change (irresponsible, and might lazy be sneaking in again? Ick!).

But Jesus doesn’t stop there. There was an intentional order to his solution…You see, it’s not the desire to help that’s the problem. It’s our obscured perspective: FIRST, take the log out of your own eye and THEN you will be able to see clearly enough to help take out the speck of sawdust out of another’s. Jesus moves you and me from not only seeing our own problems but to action. He says to us, “Look! Get rid of the laziness and take responsibility for you before you try to deal with everyone else’s stuff. If I may continue with the metaphor, “Find a mirror and splatter that big fat whitehead all over it” (told you it gets messyJ)!   

And that is my hope with this website…That by taking a perspective of non-judgmental, personal responsibility, you and I might be able to take the wisdom offered by my friend and wield it as a power-tool to help us do the hard, messy work of log-removal.  And out of that, we might be able to help others, who might be able to then pay that forward ,and through that we might all leave the World a little better place than when we started.