Pearls Before Swine
“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces." Matthew 7:6
"5 You hypocrite! First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. 6 Do not give dogs what is holy; do not throw your pearls before swine. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces. 7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."
In my own personal experience right now it really speaks to me about relationships. In my life I've been going through a complete mental overhaul. Being pregnant with #5 and in the financial situation we're in has caused just a lot of deep thoughts and rearranging of priorities and thankfully really powerful God moments where he's helping me to see my own futility. We work so diligently towards futile goals sometimes in life and I really honestly thought for years now that I had my priorities straight, but that was a direction I based off of false coordinates.
When trying to find a bearing you have to be sure your numbers are true. Some of the vague things impressed onto me when I was young were not inherently bad, but were very misplaced, especially being vague and unexplained. Or maybe they were just misplaced, I don't know the heart behind them. I believe my parents were trying to build strong sibling relationships, and while this is a worthwhile endeavor, they totally and completely missed the mark when preparing my mind for the direction of a marriage mentality.
It is my fault that I foolishly and irresponsibly put certain relationships in my life above ones that should have come first. I didn't even see at the time that what I was doing was putting them above. It's just this cloak that was over my eyes thinking all family was created equal, it is not. It shouldn't be.
This verse popped up in my head this morning and I realize that my pearls were my best efforts and unfortunately the swine was relationships with people that were not reciprocal and never have been. I threw seeds on bad ground and therefore the seeds were eaten by the crows. Obviously the seed was my time, effort, and our heard earned money that really honestly was not free to be spent at that point in our lives.
And I'm not even blaming anyone but myself at this point. I just thought for so many years that I had done the right thing and now I see that I made those decisions based off of a really misplaced sense of duty. Mentally being an involved Aunt and sister felt like more of an important thing than being a responsible Mother and wife. But really, I had no good examples to follow if I'm being completely honest.
I was looking at everyone else's life and making decisions with a log in my eye.
I always wondered at this scripture, at what exactly he was talking about when he said it. Because the verse before and after kind of feel a little disjointed from this one... The whole paragraph reads,
In my own personal experience right now it really speaks to me about relationships. In my life I've been going through a complete mental overhaul. Being pregnant with #5 and in the financial situation we're in has caused just a lot of deep thoughts and rearranging of priorities and thankfully really powerful God moments where he's helping me to see my own futility. We work so diligently towards futile goals sometimes in life and I really honestly thought for years now that I had my priorities straight, but that was a direction I based off of false coordinates.
When trying to find a bearing you have to be sure your numbers are true. Some of the vague things impressed onto me when I was young were not inherently bad, but were very misplaced, especially being vague and unexplained. Or maybe they were just misplaced, I don't know the heart behind them. I believe my parents were trying to build strong sibling relationships, and while this is a worthwhile endeavor, they totally and completely missed the mark when preparing my mind for the direction of a marriage mentality.
It is my fault that I foolishly and irresponsibly put certain relationships in my life above ones that should have come first. I didn't even see at the time that what I was doing was putting them above. It's just this cloak that was over my eyes thinking all family was created equal, it is not. It shouldn't be.
This verse popped up in my head this morning and I realize that my pearls were my best efforts and unfortunately the swine was relationships with people that were not reciprocal and never have been. I threw seeds on bad ground and therefore the seeds were eaten by the crows. Obviously the seed was my time, effort, and our heard earned money that really honestly was not free to be spent at that point in our lives.
And I'm not even blaming anyone but myself at this point. I just thought for so many years that I had done the right thing and now I see that I made those decisions based off of a really misplaced sense of duty. Mentally being an involved Aunt and sister felt like more of an important thing than being a responsible Mother and wife. But really, I had no good examples to follow if I'm being completely honest.
I was looking at everyone else's life and making decisions with a log in my eye.
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