Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow / Livestream
Upset that a driver took two parking spots and deprived you of a space close to a store?
Or flustered that a roommate leaves clothes scattered across the apartment?
“There’s no shortage of opportunities for us to be judging all day long,” Tree Demeter of Redemption Church Peoria told a Monday Chapel audience at Global Credit Union Arena.
Demeter revealed incidents involving her snap judgments and emphasized that we should be following God’s eye test for the heart.
“There is no shortage of opportunities for us to be judging all day long,” Demeter said. “We are really judging machines, and God knows this.
“That’s why He gives us a solution.”
Demeter refers to Matthew 7:1-5, in which God says not to judge others, and you will not be judged, and you will be treated as you treat others. And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?”
“Jesus said the solution in this passage does not come easy to us,” Demeter said. “How to take the plank out of our own eye, this is a skill we have to learn. We don’t have to learn to judge. We just start judging other ones naturally. But how often do we self-examine? How often do we self-reflect? That is something we have to learn.”
The eye exam for the heart involves checking one’s vision and where one’s vision is blocked.
“When I search my heart, I have less time to fault others,” Demeter said.
Methods of searching your heart include reading the Bible, sitting in a biblical teaching, learning from a mentor or attending Bible study.
Several years ago, Demeter admitted she snapped at her husband Jon, an adjunct professor in the College of Theology at GCU and pastor at Redemption. She learned that he allowed their oldest son, Carson, to drive alone to a friend’s house without consultation shortly after he received his driver’s license.
“Behind closed doors, I let him have it,” said Tree, adding that she fought with her husband inside her head before verbally blasting him.
“I remember saying, ‘If something happens to him, I’ll never forgive you.’ “
Immediately, Tree recanted. “I wanted to put (the words back in).”
Demeter knew she had to sit with the Lord, asking why she responded so abruptly.
It was at that time she followed the Prayer of Examen, authored by St. Ignatius of Loyola in the 1500s. Demeter said the prayer helps to identify and pay more attention to God’s activity in our everyday life, and she likes it because it serves more as a guide than as a prescription.
Demeter outlined four steps to the prayer:
Presence
Gratitude
Review
Response
Presence asks that you remind yourself of God’s presence with you and His desire to be with you, to take time from your schedule if needed.
Gratitude asks that in assessing the previous 24 hours, what causes you to be thankful. Demeter said she follows this routine every morning.
To review involves learning from the past, no matter how big or small. “By intentionally reviewing our interaction, responses, feeling and intentions, we can avoid letting days speed by,” Demeter said.
A response might include a confession or asking for direction. This may occur after expressing your thoughts on the actions, attitudes, feelings and interactions you have remembered as part of this experience.
For Demeter, her snap stemmed from two previous incidents that had nothing to do with her husband that she reflected on during her sit-down with the Lord.
In the first incident, a couple the Demeters were close to had lost a son, Parker, in his early 20s. Parker was the ringbearer in the Demeters' wedding, and Tree said her hair was falling out because of the loss, despite not being Parker’s mother.
In the second incident, car trauma hovered over Tree since her youth “that I didn’t even know was there.” She was 2 years old when a drunk driver killed an uncle and cousin. And at 15, Tree and her mother were struck by a drunk driver. “I thought (my mom) died,” Tree revealed.
So when Tree learned that her son was driving alone for the first time, “All of that burst out of me – Parker passing away and knowing there is no promises my kids are going to be OK, along with this car trauma and tragedy that I was carrying around with me made for this perfect recipe for to explode.
“And where I was going after John, I realized that less about him and him blocking me, and more about what was going on inside of me.”
In her sit-down with Jesus, Tree learned “if I’m a mess and needy and broken, and I don’t know how long I’d be that way, who would ever love me like that? That’s what God exposed.”
Tree asked Jesus to take the plank out of her eye. She apologized to her husband while seeing what is true and not true and discern what is best for Carson.
“Where do you guys find yourself judging? (Are) there any places where you lack self-examination. Any skills you need to grow into and check your heart and see maybe where your vision is blurry.
“I think it’s an invitation for God to take the plank out of our eye or at least clear up our vision so that we can see ourselves and see Him and see the world around us, including the people, very clearly because otherwise we’ll miss some of that beauty.”
Next Chapel speaker, 11 a.m. Oct. 28, Global Credit Union Arena: Nick Ely, Christ Church
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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