"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."
~ Matthew 7:3-5
I see this scripture as great advice, to be in a better position to help others!
I grew up on a tobacco farm. And one of the biggest jobs in the summer was to hoe the weeds out of the rows of tobacco. This job had a strange aspect to it though. As a person walked down the rows all day long looking at sand and tobacco plants with the odd weed, the mind started to play tricks. The mind started to self-correct what it saw, into what it wanted to see. In other words, the mind started to miss seeing the weeds from time to time. Then upon looking back, the weeds were visible. But, if a person never looked back at their own row, then they would never be able to see their own mistakes.
I remember watching others hoe their rows, and pointing out when they missed a weed. My uncle would have great patience with me, but from time to time, he would point out all the weeds I missed. “Hoe your own row,” he would say. The more I watched other people’s rows, the more weeds I missed in my own row. The more I watched for mistakes in others, the more I could not see my own mistakes, the more my own row suffered, the slower I worked, and the slower my own skills improved.
My uncle was very good at his job, and would take several rows to the end of the field, then work his way back down our rows, helping the work get done much more effectively, while still placing us in the situation to improve our skills. He could see that the most effective way to help someone, was to watch his own rows first, then he was in a unique position to help others, without hindering their own development.
This principle applies to many areas of life, and by looking at our own hearts and not trying to catch others in their mistakes, we can increase our own skill, and be in a much better position to effectively help others where we can.
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