Check Your Own Odor First

Pastor Max Lucado tells a story about the day his wife brought home a monkey. His daughters were delighted. He was not. He had questions. Where would it eat? At the table, his wife said, just like everyone else. Where would it sleep? In their bed. And what about the smell?

She looked at him and said: "Oh, he'll get used to you. I did."

Lucado's point was simple and a little uncomfortable: before you comment on someone else's odor, check your own first.

Jesus made the same point with slightly different imagery. "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye but do not notice the log in your own?" (Matthew 7:3) It is one of those lines that makes you smile — and then wince. Because most of us are considerably more aware of other people's failings than our own.

There is something almost instinctive about it. We notice the sharpness in someone else's tone while forgetting our own. We catalog another person's selfishness while remaining largely unaware of ours. We are, as a rule, much harder on others than we are on ourselves — and much easier on ourselves than we are on others.

The invitation here is not to beat ourselves up. It is simply honest self-awareness — the willingness to pause before the verdict on someone else.

The poet John O'Donohue offers this as a suggested morning prayer: Lord, help me be gracious in awareness.

It’s a simple prayer. But it can change a conversation, a relationship, even a life.

Prayer: Lord, give us the grace to see ourselves clearly — not to condemn ourselves, but to stay honest. Before we judge, help us to pause. Before we criticize, help us to reflect. Keep us humble enough to check our own odor first. Amen.

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