By: Iyo Embong

“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes,…” (Proverbs 21:2)

We are often very quick to judge other people on what they do or by how they act or lived. But perhaps we should also do our own examination of ourselves. So, for a moment, let’s just do a bit of self-searching on a long list of subjects:

• If you were choosing someone you had to trust, could you trust yourself?
• Would you like to meet yourself when you are in trouble, will you be there?
• If other men didn’t put locks on their homes, on their warehouses, and on banks, would you ever walk in where you knew you had no right to walk?
• If there were no accounts, no courts, no jails, no disgrace – none of the usual fears except your own soul and conscience inside of you – would you ever take what you knew you had no right to take?
• Would you serve a man who is poor as fairly as you would a man who is very rich and influential?
• Would you pay a person as fair a price for something he was forced to sell due to hardships as for something he didn’t have to sell?
• Would you honour an unwritten agreement as honestly as if it were written?
• If you found a lost article that no one else could possibly know you had found, would you try to return it or put it in your own pocket?
• Do you talk as well of your friends when they aren’t around as when they are?
• Do you really think that you are a better Christian because you’ve been going to Church for a long time, compared to the newly saved ones?
• Would you like to be at your own mercy or would you be just like the Priest or the Levite who walked passed the dying man?
• If you make a mistake, would you admit it or… because you are in a higher authority would you pretend to be right even when you knew you were wrong?
• Do you make an earnest effort to improve your performance or have you been hoping for an undeserved improvement in your pay or your position?
• Do you try to get the job done or do you play around for fear you were doing too much?
• Could you honestly do a better job than those people that you often criticise for their mistakes?
• Would you hire yourself?
• Would you like to work for yourself?
• Would you like to live, with yourself?
• If your partner were to die, would you treat his family as fairly as if he were alive? If he lost his health, would you still deal with him not only justly but also generously?
• If your partner suddenly loose everything he got, would you still ‘TRULY’ love him/her?
• How well do you know the other people’s heart, or are you just judging them?

This is admittedly a severe score card. But sometimes it’s a good thing to honestly turn and look ourselves in a mirror inside out and see it as if we were someone else.

It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. It’s easy to be negative; it’s easy to make excuses. It is love, forgiveness and greatness that require a great heart, great mind and great effort. All good things are difficult to achieve and bad things are very easy to get. To be wronged is nothing unless you chose to continue to remember it.

“He that is slow to anger is greater than the mighty” (King Solomon)

By: Iyo Embong