Matthew 7: 1-5

The man believed he had a gift.

He noticed cracks.

Hairline fractures in other people’s windows—small enough to ignore, large enough to bend the light. He could see them instantly. A splintered edge here. A warped frame there.

He carried cloths and tools wherever he went. He called it service.

“Just a quick fix,” he would say. “You’ll see more clearly once this is gone.”

Some thanked him.

Some stiffened.

Most felt suddenly exposed.

What the man never questioned was his own window.

It was thick. Old. Clouded by time and weight. It softened the light, dulled the edges, and narrowed his view. He had lived behind it so long he no longer remembered placing it there.

It did not feel like a burden.

It felt like certainty.

One afternoon, while making his rounds, he noticed a carpenter at the far end of the street.

The carpenter was not repairing windows.

He was gathering wood.

Not fine boards.

Not polished frames.

Beams.

Splinters.

Discarded pieces others had removed and thrown aside.

The carpenter stacked them carefully.

The man approached, uneasy.

“You’re missing a crack,” he said, nodding toward a nearby house. “There’s a splinter right there.”

The carpenter smiled.

“I see it.”

“Then why not fix it?”

“Because I’m building something else.”

The man frowned. “With that?”

He gestured toward the pile—crooked wood, uneven grain, pieces too rough to reuse.

“Yes,” the carpenter said. “With exactly this.”

The man glanced down at his own window. For the first time, he noticed how heavy it was—how it pressed inward, how it limited what he could see.

“There’s something wrong with your glass,” he said, instinctively. “You should replace it.”

The carpenter stepped closer.

“May I show you something first?”

Before the man could answer, the carpenter placed a hand on the window and lifted it free.

The man staggered.

The pane was not glass at all.

It was a beam.

Long. Load-bearing. Resting where his sight should have been.

He gasped. “I didn’t know I was carrying this.”

“You couldn’t,” the carpenter said gently. “Not while using it to look at everyone else.”

The man’s knees weakened. The beam was heavier than he imagined.

The carpenter took it from him without effort and laid it across the pile of wood.

Then He knelt and picked up a splinter—small, sharp, easily overlooked.

“This, too,” He said.

One by one, the carpenter gathered the splinters the man had pointed out in others over the years. He did not accuse. He did not name names. He simply collected them.

Then He did something unexpected.

He placed the beam upright.

He set the splinters across it.

The shape formed slowly.

Unmistakably.

The man felt his breath catch.

“That’s…” he began.

“Yes,” the carpenter said.

The man watched as the carpenter secured them together, not as judgment, but as an offering.

“It was never about fixing everyone’s windows,” the carpenter continued. “It was about what all this wood was meant for.”

The man’s eyes filled—not with shame, but relief.

“So what do I do now?” he asked.

“Stand here,” the carpenter said. “And learn to see from this side.”

The man did.

From there, the light made sense.

He still noticed cracks.

He still saw splinters.

But now he saw them through the cross—

where his own beam had been laid down

and every splinter had already been carried.

And when he helped others after that,

he did not arrive with tools raised,

but with hands open—

careful, gentle,

and keenly aware

that clarity had only come

because mercy had gone first.

Jesus’ command is not silence, but order.

Ask Jesus to remove the beam. He wants to carry it.

In the kingdom Jesus proclaims, judgment belongs to God alone,

and those who follow Him learn to approach others not as judges,

But as fellow recipients of grace.

The words of Jesus do not soften truth.

They soften the heart that carries it.

And only a heart made gentle by grace

can be trusted with another person’s sight.