My Dirt's Cleaner than Your Dirt

By Gobel Brockman


     Several years ago I heard a minister make a point that I'd never thought of before. He said he was at home eating supper, and dropped a potato chip on the floor. Without giving it any thought, he bent down and picked up the chip, blew it off, and popped it in his mouth. He then thought of the times he had been at someone else's house and had the same thing happen. What did he do with the chip? He put it on his plate to be thrown away. He then thought to himself, "Why? Same chips, same carpeting, same type of people walking on it." He went on to make this observation: "I guess I think my dirt's cleaner than yours."

(This proves that you can find life lessons anywhere.)

     If we're honest with ourselves, I think we've all been guilty of "Dirty Chip Syndrome." It's interesting that we can always at least defend our motives when we mess up, then castigate everything about the other person when they let us down. We seemingly have two standards: things that we expect from ourselves, and things that we expect from others. Amazingly, the standards we set for others always seem to be much higher than the ones we set for ourselves. I think it's good to remind myself on a regular basis of a simple yet profound truth:

     We're ALL messed up.

     One of the first Bible verses I remember being asked to memorize as a kid in Sunday School was Romans 3:23, which says, "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." That "all" includes me - and you. None of us can say we are without sin. We also like to play the comparison game: "Yeah, I've messed up, but at least I'm not as bad as ...." Once there were a group of men who tried that with Jesus. They brought a woman to him who was guilty of adultery, and demanded to know what He thought. I'm paraphrasing, but He basically said to them, "Let the one who's dirt is cleaner than hers throw the first stone." If you're familiar with the story, you know that no stones were thrown. Jesus then proceeded to deal with the sin in her life, but He dealt with it in a way that only He could.

     I think what I'm trying to say is simply that deep down, we're all the same. We are flawed, and we are all born with a sin nature. We are ALL in need of a Savior. So rather than thinking too highly of ourselves and too poorly of others, perhaps we could all start realizing that we all need to be thinking about how gracious and compassionate our Savior is - and then try to model that grace and compassion in our own lives. Yes, God demands repentance and obedience. As Christians, we are called to live holy lives. In this politically correct society we're still expected to call sin "sin." What we are NOT called to do is consider the sins of others greater than our own. 

     To say it another way, it's not to up to determine whether or not it's safe to eat the potato chips off someone else's floor.