Below is an excerpt from a weekly e-article that I receive from a former professor of mine. I've posted occasional copies of his work in the past. What struck me about this writing is that it is exactly what I have been confronted with over the past few months. I am finding that the very things that bother me the most about other people are the things that convict me within my own life. I get frustrated with certain personality traits others possess but then notice how I hold those same traits. It's almost like the old quote I read a while back, something to the tune of, "The biggest penalty for a liar is that he can never believe anyone else." (I know I've butchered that quote but I can't place it, so I had to go with how I remembered it, you'll just have to take it in the spirit of the quote.) Take a look for yourself:

In November 2006, amidst great scandal, Ted Haggard the senior pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado and president of the National Association of Evangelicals resigned from his ministry. A loud and public critic of homosexuality, he confessed to inappropriate gay encounters of his own.

We might quickly cry "Hypocrisy!" but something deeper beckons our consideration.

Gordon MacDonald wrote in a pastoral note:
“When I see a leader who becomes stubborn and rigid ... less compassionate toward his adversaries [and] increasingly tyrannical ... I wonder if he is not generating all of this heat because he is trying so hard to say ‘no’ to something surging deep within his own soul. Are his words and deeds not so much directed against an enemy ‘out there’ as they are against a much more cunning enemy within his own soul? More than once I have visited with pastors who have spent hours immersed in pornography and then gone on to preach their most 'spirit-filled' sermons against immorality a day or two later.”

This phenomenon spans the centuries. Shakespeare had Queen Gertrude exclaim, “The lady doth protest too much” in a scene in which a conniving woman kept insisting on her loyalty to her husband (Hamlet , III, ii, 239).

Excessive protests and overly vigorous opposition sometimes indicates wounds or weaknesses within us . Indeed, our own pain and failure can give us deep conviction and passion. Consequently, it may help us to clarify if our fervor and stridency arises because we are sorrowful for the fallen or struggling with ourselves. A critical spirit may reveal more of our self-perception than how we view others...

Any suggestion that we have no sin will undermine our capacity to touch others ... family members, friends, co-workers, neighbors, or fellow-believers.

Before we crusade to tear down the strongholds in others, let's confront our own demons then speak truth out of lives of humility, obedience, and sincerity. Therein lies genuine freedom for all of us, including Ted.

Herein lies the only problem that I see, I believe we are still called to speak out against sin. But the difference is our attitude. In calling out that sin we are not to believe we are above it, that we have it all figured out. We must also confess that we too are sinners, that we struggle with many of these same issues. And together we must confess our sins to the Lord, thank Him for His grace, and together ask Him to shape us into followers or Him who take on the image of His Son. As my prof signs off, In Hope!