Is it a window, or a mirror?

I’m going to step on some toes with this one, but sometimes that’s what truth does.

It doesn’t pat you on the back… It hits you in the chest.

Have you ever noticed how someone else’s sin really gets under your skin?

You see them do something, say something, or even live a certain way and you feel yourself tighten up inside.

You get irritated, maybe even angry.

You think, How could they?

But maybe… just maybe…

The reason it bothers you so much is because it’s a reflection of something in you.

See, your sin might not look the same on the surface, but the root could be identical.

The same bitterness.

The same pride.

The same lust.

The same anger.

The same control.

Different fruit, same seed.

We love to call out the fruit hanging on someone else’s tree,

while ignoring the roots choking the life out of our own.

Jesus said it like this in Matthew 7:3–5:

“Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the plank in your own?

How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there’s a plank in your own eye?

That isn’t a gentle verse, that is a spiritual punch straight to the gut. 

He wasn’t saying you can’t recognize sin. He was saying, Check your own heart first.

Because guess what? Sometimes your irritation with their sin isn’t discernment…It’s conviction.

It’s God holding up a mirror, showing you the sin that’s been hiding beneath the surface.

The reason it hurts so much to see it in them is because you haven’t faced it in you.

We’re quick to preach grace for our own struggles, but rain down judgment for everyone else’s.

We excuse our sin as “a mistake” but call theirs “a pattern.”

We call ours a “weakness” but theirs a “failure.”

But listen what if God is using that irritation to expose something He wants to heal in you?

What if that anger isn’t about them, but about what He’s trying to bring to light in your own soul?

Before you point the finger, pause and ask:

“Lord, what are You showing me in this moment?”

“Is this a mirror or a window?”

Because if we’re honest, some of the people we judge the hardest are just living out the parts of ourselves we still haven’t surrendered.

So today, instead of reacting with judgment, respond with humility.

Let conviction lead to confession.

Let irritation turn into intercession.

And let what you see in them remind you of what God is still redeeming in you.

Because the sin that irritates you in others may be the one God is asking you to finally lay down.