It wasn’t kind when I said it. More than that, it was biting. Did it feel true and justified? Absolutely. But now ask: did it have any redemptive value in how and where I said it? Not a bit
There is a specific kind of discomfort that follows moments like these. We call it conviction, but usually it just feels like an interruption, a gentle but firm hand on the shoulder. It asks us to look in the mirror when we’d much rather keep looking at the other person’s faults. It’s a strange human reflex: the more we know we’ve missed the mark, the harder we lean into our moral justifications.
Why do we hold so tightly to a version of ourselves we all know isn’t even real? We seek to present The Perfect Woman. She confronts, but rarely confesses; she may wound, but only because she was wounded first. We construct her carefully, and then defend her fiercely, because to let her go would mean admitting that we were simply… wrong. That we were unkind. Or that we were proud. Oh how we love to be both the victim and the hero in our stories.
I’ve started looking at the parable in Luke 18 differently. We usually focus on the contrast between the Pharisee and the tax collector, but I’m beginning to see it as a kind of mirror as well.
The Pharisee’s prayer was a performance of pride which he tried to make look like the marvelous virtue of gratitude:
“God, I thank You that I am not like other men…”
The tax collector made no comparisons. He was a man with no defense to offer, and no interest in building one.
“God, be merciful to me a sinner.”
We often think of this prayer only as an act of repentance, a way of looking backward at our sin. But it can be used for discernment too, a way of looking inward and forward. Praying this prayer shuts down my self-righteousness and purifies my intentions. It changes me first and affects how I speak truth to others: less edge, less ego, more of what love actually requires.
When tempted to cut someone down to size or look down on a person who irritates, “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” It is the Gospel in short form: it catches me after I fail and orients me before I act, keeping me grounded in the mercy and love of God.
The Holy Spirit doesn’t expose our shortcomings to shame us into the ground; He exposes them to free us. Freed from our self-made pedestals, we can finally be useful to those around us. We can stop defending the facade of The Perfect Woman and simply come as we actually are, for what we actually need. Nothing in my hand I bring. God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
—-The portrait is of me, by my daughter (4). She nailed it.
