The Grapefruit Syndrome

There was a story that was once told about a man and a woman that had been married for about two years. That was just about long enough for the lady to realize that the man she had married was just a normal man and the knight in shinning armour that she thought he once was. One day, this lady was reading an article that talked about habits and different things in your spouses life that you found annoying. 

It wanted you to list five things that you found irritating in your spouses life. She discussed it with her husband and they both agreed to do it. After a few days they made their list and the lady went first. Her first complaint was grapefruit. She told her husband that she didn’t like the way he ate his grapefruit. He peeled it and ate it like an orange. Now how could she spend the rest of her life living with a man that peeled and ate his grapefruit like an orange. She said she couldn’t remember what the other four things were but she was sure they were just as silly. Then came the husbands turn. 

What was it about his wife that irritated him. He thought for a little while, then he said, “Nothing. The truth is, I can’t think of anything that I don’t love about you!” The lady said that tears ran down her cheeks. She had found fault in such trivial things in the way he ate his grapefruit, while he hadn’t noticed any of her annoying habits.

But how about us? Don’t we do the same thing? We find fault in everybody else and in everything that they do and fail to correct our own problems. 

Jesus says, “Judge not that ye be not judged. For with what judgement ye judge ye shall be judged, and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why behldest thou the mote that is thy brothers eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and behold a beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam that is in thine own eye, and thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brothers eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)

Don’t we all have enough to take care of in our own lives and not worry about others and the small things in others lives?

Larry Jackson-Minister

 

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