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This text came to my mind as I read an article in a recent paper. It was headed-A LESSON LEARNT and was as follows:

The psychologist at our local common-sense class gave us all a nudge last week!

She held up a large white handkerchief, near the centre of which was a small, black spot. “Tell me “she said “What can you see?” “A small black spot,” was the instant reply. “Now that’s strange,” said our speaker. “Can’t you see a large white handkerchief?”

As we walked home, we all admitted we were guilty of seeing the small black spot in other people, rather than the many virtues which exist in every person!

This article certainly should make us think, for we ourselves are always falling into doing the opposite to our text word. We always seem to look for the worst in our neighbours. We are always keen to hear the bad things that a person is supposed to have done, and usually we are prepared to then judge them, and worse condemn them. We condemn a person when we pass what we have seen or heard, on to another, for in our mind we have accepted the bad and are then prepared to tell others. This is contrary to Christ’s teaching, where he states, if we are to judge then we must judge with righteous judgement. When we see or are told something that appears to be bad about a person, we must train ourselves to immediately think of the good attributes known about that person. Righteousness is good, for we know that Jesus Christ taught us in our lives that we should first seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness. We know that the Kingdom of God is Christ, so we see His righteousness is God’s ways that He gave to us by His word and deeds while on earth. We know by this teaching that none of us on earth are good, for He told us in Matt. 19:17. “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is God.” We believe that there is a part of God in us all, so we must remember that there is always some good in us all. We know to build this up, we have to be obedient to the remaining part of that teaching, “but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.” This seems to not always be possible. If we liken our- selves to the newspaper article as the white cloth, no one seems to take any notice of those things and so it must be; for our good deeds must not be put forward according to Christ’s teaching in Matt. 6:1, “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them, otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven”, but these must be there in our lives, to be seen as Christ taught, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. If we were to spend a little time in our lives to look for the good in those around us, we would see more there than we first realize, and this will give us cause to thank God that He has allowed this good to be done. Who knows, we may even suddenly see how little, white is in our lives, and how many black spots we have. If we look for this good, we will then be in a position if someone tells us something bad about a person to say back. “Oh that may well be so but, look at all the good virtues of that person; and name some of them.” This should achieve two things. Firstly, we are ensuring that we are unlikely to pass that bad news on to another, and secondly, there is a great chance that the person who told us, may then remember by our reply, Christ’s words. “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye.” If this is achieved, then we will have fulfilled our text-word.