DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR BLIND SPOTS ARE?

 When I was a young woman, a close friend and I would walk our neighborhood after we had dropped our children off at school. On one of our walks, my friend ask me the strangest question that kind of caught me off guard. She ask, if I thought there were any obvious blind spots in her life that she may not see in herself; but may be obvious to others and in doing so, had impacted what they may think about her in a negative way. WOW! No one had ever ask me that question before. I really struggled at first to be honest with her, because I knew that I probably had far too many blind spots myself, to try and council someone else of theirs. Plus, I knew that the scripture warned in Matt. 7:5 not to try and take the splinter out of someone’s else’s eye if there was a huge plank in their own. 

I would had never wanted to hurt her with any comments that I could have possibly contributed. After all,  I had loved her warm and considerate caring nature, and in no way did I want to nitpick her blind spots when I was struggling with a Kung Fu grip on my own. Little did I realize at first, that it was not my judgement that she was seeking, but truth from a friend that she felt she could trust. She was on a journey, seeking truth, change and personal revival. She needed a new vantage point and was willing to see her shortcomings as others might see them. Once she realized that the reward far outweighed the risk she was willing to act, but she also knew that she could not look where she could not see. 

Like my friend, I too had to learn that once I realized the rewards of being willing, they far outweigh the risk of being offended. Through the years I have learned even though I still struggle at times, that a blind spot is a performance hindering mindset or behavior of which we are unaware or have chosen to overlook. It’s virtually impossible to achieve change without first having clarity on where making changes will most help us.  All of us need to learn how to discover these blind spots. 

However, we cannot center our focus on something that we can not see, and we must be very willing to see them when they are pointed out to us. No matter how hard we try to be self-aware. Everyone including the best of folks, have unproductive behaviors that are invisible to them, but glaring to everyone else. Our behavioral blind spots can create unintended consequences for us. They distort our judgment, corrupt our decision-making, reduce our awareness of them, destroy relationships and sabotage our careers and ministry. 

A blind spot is a mindset that turns into a behavior of which we are unaware or have chosen to overlook. Every personality type has strengths and weaknesses. But when carried to the extreme or inflamed by stressful situations, even our core strengths can become a damaging weakness and we become our worst enemy. While it is, in our human nature to want to defend and win an argument, conflict becomes destructive when our good thinking turns negative and erodes our trust in anyone other than ourselves. Empathy and insights are tossed aside when we filter incoming information through the lens of what we believe and want; but may not always be fact and truth. When this happens, it becomes easy to categorize others as the enemy, who must be wrong. Instead of differences of opinions, conflict becomes a power struggle that prevents you from seeing any other solution other than winning your own point. 2 Cor. 10:12 warns us not to compare or measure ourselves by ourselves, because it is not wise and we lack wisdom and understanding if we do.

 Through the years I have learned that one of the greatest values that a good friend or mentors can have, is the ability to see ahead of what others cannot see and to help them navigate a course to a good destination. People can’t appreciate what they don’t know is there. There’s more than one lens in life and you just happen to possess one of the billions.

Hold Fast

-Bren