Have you ever eaten a humble pie?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love pie. ALL pie. Give me all your pumpkin, your cherry, your pecan, your apple, and especially your key lie. But a humble pie? I think that’s the only one I could do without. Unfortunately, often times, I need it. And God is always ready, in His infinite wisdom, to give me a slice just when I think I don’t (because it’s often when I need it the most!)

My story goes a little something like this:

I’m driving my kids to school. It’s a normal morning. We’re right on time, cruising along our usual route, chatting about the day ahead when, out of nowhere, a car blasts by me going at least 20 miles over the speed limit. And, not only is this car speeding, he’s weaving in and out of lanes of traffic dangerously, causing other drivers to brake and swerve to avoid collisions.

Instantly, my mood sours. I feel myself grow hot. Because my kids are in the car, I keep my mouth shut. But, inwardly, I’m FUMING, calling this driver names inside my head I wouldn’t dare speak out-loud. The INDIGNITY. The GALL. What an absolutely TERRIBLE human being, selfishly putting others at risk. So, when I see flashing lights up ahead, it’s with no small amount of smugness that I realize this horrid person had gotten pulled over. In fact, if you looked up smug in the dictionary, pretty sure you would have seen my face as I drove by the spot where he’d been pulled over. “Serves you right,” that wicked voice inside my head gloated. “Jerk.” Not only was this complete stranger’s speeding ticket sweet justice, it was also validation of me and all the rest of the law-abiding drivers.

An ego boost.

Look what happens when you’re good like me. Like us.

And look what happens when you’re not.

Fast forward a couple of months. Same scene. Only, this time, I’m the speeding driver. We were running late for school, I had a meeting immediately after drop-off, and the traffic–which is never heavy in my small town–suddenly decided to become as thick as peanut butter. I was stressed. I was impatient. I was…

…pulled over.

In almost the exact same spot the “jerk” I’d gloated over had been pulled over not too long before I had.

But I had reasons! I wasn’t a bad person. I was just having a bad morning. A stressful, rushed, bad morning.

The policeman didn’t care. In his eyes, I had broken the law, plain and simple. He was justified in giving me the ticket.

Still, I was outraged. But then, later, when my emotions cooled….that’s when the humble pie came in.

A big, steaming, overloaded slice of it.

Because the fact was I did deserve that ticket. I did break the law.

I was a lawbreaker.

No better than that other man who’d also been pulled over a few weeks before.

I had thought I was a better person….but I was just as guilty as he was.

The truth is, we often expect–no, require–others to be perfect…but are quick to give ourselves grace when we inevitably fall short. We make excuses for our law-breaking but refuse to accept any in others. We want others to be bound to the rules, but it causes outrage in us when we are expected to follow them ourselves.

We are, by very nature, hypocrites.

The very people Jesus Himself so often preached against.

Ouch.

Told you humble pie didn’t taste very good.

Thomas a Kempis, the noted 15th century German-Dutch writer and priest, had this to say about the phenomenon: “If you can’t mold yourself, how can you expect others to fit your expectations? Bear with your neighbor’s faults, for you have a great many of your. own that others must bear. We rebuke small faults inn others but overlook greater faults in ourselves. We are quick to resent what we suffer from others, but we fail to consider what others suffer from us.”

This is part of what makes Jesus’s command to love others so doggone difficult. It’s because other people are full of so many FAULTS.

It becomes easier when we accept that we are full of those faults, too.

So the next time you’re tempted to judge another or elevate yourself (or both!) remember that Jesus came and died not only for that person, but for you, too.

For sinners.

For us.

And then maybe go grab yourself a slice of key lime pie instead.