Tuesday, January 26, 2016
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When you drive in the New York area, hold on tight. Take changing lanes for example. That's a well developed art form; three or four lanes at a pop. There it goes! Now, the danger zone in changing lanes is what they call your blind spot; that one area in your rear vision that you can't see in any of your mirrors. It's pretty critical. Actually the words "blind spot" took on new meaning for my wife and me a few years ago. See, she had a blind spot. It finally cleared up, but she had vision problems. The doctor believed it was a temporary blind spot. He injected some dye to see how much of her vision was blocked. And I was surprised as he showed us the results. He said, "Now, here's the blind spot that we all have." And I said, "I do?" Right around the optic nerve there are more rods and cones to produce a visual image. So guess what? We all have a blind spot.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How Your Blind Spot Makes You Crash."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from the wise book of Proverbs 15:12. It's pretty practical stuff. It says, "A mocker resents correction. He will not consult the wise." Verse 5 of that same chapter says, "Whoever heeds correction shows prudence."
This is mentioned three times in the same chapter, so it's got to be important. Verse 32 says, "He who ignores discipline despises himself, but whoever heeds correction gains understanding." It's pretty clear what God is saying here, "Wise people know how to accept correction." They know how to respond to criticism.
You need people around you who confront you, who challenge you, even the ones who criticize you. Why? Because you have a blind spot. Everybody's got a blind spot. We all have weaknesses we can't see. There are hurtful ways we treat people, things we say, ways we act when we're busy or when we're tired. Maybe we're changing lanes and we don't see anything behind us, or maybe even ahead of us.
Often some or our most entrenched sins are often sins we can't see very well. We're so used to doing things a certain way we'll never see some sin without the help of someone else. I'm going to tell you, I've not always welcomed how they tried to help me sometimes. See, God doesn't want our blind spot to remain there. He knows well that the blind spot could make you crash, so he puts two-legged mirrors in our life. You might have some of those.
Those are the people who love us enough, or maybe even dislike us enough to tell us the hard truth about ourselves. If you're mirroring, are you living like a mirror? Sometimes a parent is your mirror, your child might be your mirror. Even your grandchild could be God's mirror in your life. Or maybe your mirror is a friend.
Proverbs 27:17 says, "Iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens the countenance of his friend." Sometimes, though, that sharpening of our countenance doesn't come from somebody we perceive as a friend. It might be somebody who is one of those aggravating maybe even highly critical people in our life. But what they speak may be the truth. The measure of truth is in the words, not the one who said it, the truth that is there. And it may be that they're 10% right and 90% wrong. Take that 10% as a gift from God to help you stay on course.
If you're going to be a good mirror for other people by showing them their blind spots, then would you be sure you show them their strong points too. Tell them what's right with them first. People need to know their strengths. People need to know what's good about them as well as what's bad. Make sure there's praise as well as constructive criticism that says, "I love you enough to tell you the truth."
If our physical vision is faulty, there might be a blind spot that could make you crash. Because God loves you so much, He's not going to leave that blind spot there; sometimes coming from someone who loves us, sometimes coming from a very unwelcome source. But consider, "Where is the truth in what they're saying?" And take it for what it is...a gift from God to help you avoid the crash.