There is a tendency for human beings to think they are right even when they are wrong. Wise King Solomon wrote:
Proverbs 16:2 – All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. Proverbs 16:25 – There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. (See also 21:2; 28:11)
We can be convinced that we are doing right even when we are doing wrong. There are rabbis who think they are doing right by attacking Messianic Jews; homosexuals who push alternative sexual agendas in public schools; Muslims who blow themselves up as terrorists, etc. Not only with these extreme examples, but in everyday life, we tend to be sure we are right, even when we are wrong. It is possible to summarize every human argument in history by these words, “I am right and you are wrong.”
Even when we are partially correct, we tend to see things out of balance. Yeshua taught us the “Law of Perspective.”
Matthew 7:3 – “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?”
You might ask if you are the one with the speck or with the plank. However, Yeshua said this to all of us, so it is a universal principle. Try holding up a coin at arm’s length. It appears to be the same size as the sun or the moon. The difference is how close it is to our eyes. What is close seems big; what is far seems small.
The “speck and plank” principle makes for eight categories:
When you do something right, it seems enormous to you.
When you do something right, it seems tiny to someone else.
When you do something wrong, it seems tiny to you.
When you do something wrong, it seems enormous to someone else.
When someone else does something right, it seems enormous to him.
When someone else does something right, it seems tiny to you.
When someone else does something wrong, it seems tiny to him.
When someone else does something it seems enormous to you.
One of these categories fits a situation in your life today! (Ah, perhaps mine as well.)
[This principle can also work in reverse for guilt. Sometimes when we do something wrong, it blows up in our conscience in a guilt complex that paralyzes us from going forward. In either direction we need to seek the objective viewpoint of Scriptures, of the Holy Spirit, and of godly friends and counselors.]
