The blind spot

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Even though I knew they were right I didn’t like them telling me so. It’s always a shock when people reveal things about us we hadn’t seen before. This is often referred to as a ‘blind spot’.

The ‘blind spot’ is a weakness that we are not aware of but the people around us usually are. It could be making a type of comment that really gets under people’s skin; a certain bias or prejudice; or just a habit, such as noisily clearing your throat. Very often it is not that we are unaware of it, but rather that we choose to believe it doesn’t exist (denial), so we react badly when others bring it to our attention. This makes it extremely difficult to face up to certain things and take some big steps toward character growth.

One of the Holy Spirit’s jobs is to convict us of our sin and empower us to pursue greater holiness. Do you desire this level of discipleship? Look at Psalm 139:23-24. This week I prayed that God would bring things that are currently in my blind spot to my attention. Well, in truth I tried to pray this, and it made me realise that I didn’t actually want to experience the discomfort and hardship of facing up to it! Praying made it clear to me that it would involve sacrifice and commitment to permanently change the things in me that are not Christ-like. It was a hard but good prayer to pray. This is the beginning of a journey. Let’s give it a go!

If you or your mentee are at a place where you want to do some soul work around shedding light on their blind spot, here are a few ideas of things you can do and discuss with your mentee:

• Pray. Prepare your heart for dealing well with whatever God wants to reveal.
• List key people in various spheres of your life and send them a few questions asking for their honest insight into what your hidden / biggest weaknesses are. Give them a deadline, but allow them time to reflect on their answers first.
• Pray over and discuss the feedback. It is possible that some of it is not completely accurate, or just not right to tackle now, so you will need help to be discerning.
• List action points and put accountability measures in place. How will you instigate change (if necessary)? Who can check that you are committed and sticking to tackling issues in your blind spot?
• Send your reflections and intentions back to those who gave you answers to get their thoughts and support. Is there a way they could flag these behaviours if you revert to doing them again?
• Evaluate and pray with your mentor again after a few weeks have passed.

If the science interests you, there is a very interesting graphic around this kind of thinking called the Johari Window. There is plenty of information on this if you search online.