Matthew 7:3-5 New Living Translation (NLT)

3 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye[a] when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying to your friend,[b] ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”

Judging. Who of us doesn’t do it? In no relationship is it more evident than in our marriages. After all, we have PLENTY of opportunity to “see” all our spouses faults, since we eat, sleep, engage in activities, chores, child rearing, etc….together…all the time!

Years ago when Doug and I were going through the fire in our marriage, judgment was revealed to me in a not so subtle way. As I was walking through our home going about my daily duties of wife and mommy, I was subconsciously mumbling about what an idiot my husband was. I can’t even recall what the phrases were, but it must have had something to do with his recent confession of sin.

After years of lying to me about his addiction to sexual sin, his company exposed him; they had been tracking his internet content for almost 3 years and his warnings were over. He was asked to turn in his badge and sent home to await word from HR about his future employment. You can imagine my shock, embarrassment and anger. Didn’t I have the right to be mad as heck?!? Sure. To an extent. The bible is clear- we are to be angry-but NOT sin. I must admit I was way past that point as I verbally attacked him from the moment of his confession and now I was even verbally abusing him in his absence!

As I left our bedroom, I entered the hallway that led into the living room and an almost audible voice from the Lord stopped me literally, in my tracks.

 “Don’t you think I died for him too? I love him….just as I love you.”

Whoa. A moment of realization that changed my life and my marriage-forever. Over the next several months the Holy Spirit began revealing to me my sexual sins, as well as many others sins that contributed to the breakdown of my relationship with Doug. You see, I was so worried about the speck in my husbands’ eye that I neglected the log that was protruding out of mine!

We see this same scenario play out over and over again with couples we mentor. It is too easy for husbands and wives to judge each other’s sin and throw them under the bus without even considering what their own faults are. The enemy uses our judgments against one another as a launching pad towards forgiveness, bitterness, rage, denial and ultimately stonewalling. And once he gets us there, we’ll willingly take the final step of ending the marriage because we are convinced that the other person is the one entirely at fault.

The great news is, there is a way out of this trap! The Holy Spirit will ever so lovingly reveal the logs in our eyes….if we’ll just ask Him! Once we do that, then repent & forgive, the logs are removed and the area around the wound is miraculously healed. But notice, the scripture does not say that we will then be able to remove the speck from our spouses’ eye once we have been healed! Instead, it says we will be able to deal with it. When we focus on our relationship with the Creator of the Universe and allow Him to go logging in our life, our perspective of our spouse changes and we begin to see them the way God sees them…knowing that He died for, and loves them, too.