I can now remember only parts of my preaching on that Sunday morning. What I do remember today clearly, however, is that this brother came to me after the service and said to me rather conspiratorially:
“Pastor Deon, that message was powerful, but I know who it was meant for.”
That was strange. No one had ever claimed such knowledge about my teachings before. The brother wasn’t done yet.
“Everything you said today fits into his life very well. I hope he changes his ways,” he added confidently.
And before I could even ask him who he had in mind, he mentioned another brother and shook his head in a pitiful manner.
If your light can only see the boulders on your neighbors’s path, you are shining it in the wrong direction.
— Deon Akintomide
In all honesty, I didn’t have the person he mentioned in mind at all. I had no one in mind. But the baffling thing is this, if that message was for anyone, it was for this brother who thought it was for someone else. I knew him that much. I was indeed baffled that someone could deflect a message that could help him and apply it to another person.
Such denial!
But I couldn’t be hard on this brother. Why? Because I suddenly remembered who I was decades earlier. I remembered how we, as teenagers, would sit down at the back of the choir section in church and analyze our pastor’s messages.
My friend would say, “That point is for elder so-and-so; he is the one our pastor is bashing.” I would respond, “Just what I am thinking. You got that right.” Then we would look in the direction of elder so-and-so to analyze his expression.
I did that a lot in those days. We never bothered to apply the Word to ourselves. We were foolish youths who saw themselves in the mirror looking disheveled, then decided it couldn’t be us; it must be our neighbor we were seeing in that mirror.
It was to us a play, one we enjoyed. At the end of the service, we would be happy that someone had been dealt with by the pastor today. Twisted satisfaction usually followed. Ācta est fābula, plaudite!
It is even worse when you read the bible and instead of applying the message to yourself, you keep seeing how it is meant for someone out there.
This happens more often than we realize. It is so much easier to recognize and magnify other people’s faults while glossing over our own and excusing them. Many even project their faults onto others and then start to attack those people.
“Examine yourself,” says the apostle. “Search me, O Lord, says the Psalmist.”
Stop examining other people. Stop asking God to search and deal with others.
If your light can only see the boulders on your neighbors’s path, you are shining it in the wrong direction.
