Open your two eyes and watch what you are doing

Ed, my neighbour next door, watched me back my car out of the garage yesterday. My neighbour didn’t mind telling me that my backing up could have been straighter and better. Ed is a person who tells anyone and everyone what he feels they need to know, whether they want to hear it or not. Some folks give their two cents on everything they see as if it is worth $10. Ed cannot believe anyone would not want to hear his opinions, except Ruby, his wife. He admits family members are a tough and skeptical bunch when told anything. 

“You have two eyes to watch what you are doing,” Ed told me. “You backed out of your garage like you had your eyes shut. Did you have your glasses on,” he asked.

“I didn’t know you were watching Ed, or I would have been more careful, so I didn’t offend you,” I told Ed. Ed said a little practice would help me, as I needed to get better at it. My neighbour felt telling me I backed up poorly would result in a better performance in the future. Being told I need to improve at backing up did not inspire me to improve. Doing better is not simply a case of keeping both eyes open and focused on what you are doing. It is easy to see how others could improve, but hard to see how we need to improve ourselves. Telling others what they didn’t do well, and need to improve on, is often of little value.

How many times have we cautioned others to, “Watch what you are doing!” or “Have an eye, watch where you are going! Watch the road!” Often, when someone could have done much better, it was the best the person could achieve at the time. What amount of a poor job done matters? If in backing out of my garage I dent my car or damage the garage, I do need to improve at backing my car out of the garage.  If I do not damage my car or garage, I’m satisfied even if Ed isn’t. We should drive with our eyes open anywhere with full attention and defensively. Being preoccupied, while driving, is dangerous for the driver and other folks. I do drive with my eyes open, even if Ed says that I close my eyes and pray while backing up out of my garage.

When it comes to living our Christian lives, it may appear that we are not living as straight and well as we could, or should, live. It is no easy job to keep one eye on God and one eye focused on our neighbour while living our lives. How easy it is to get focused on ourselves and turn a blind eye to God and others. Anyone can be a critic and point out someone else’s sin, but only God makes things right. Only God is perfect. It is God who loves and restores sinners through the cleansing of his Son’s blood. God wants us to see that none of us are without sin. Sin traps us all and it is the forgiveness of God that we need to see for ourselves, and others.