Those blind spot beeps from the car have saved my life. You’re taught in driver’s ed to turn your head all the way around—to look over your shoulder at the blind spot. But sometimes…you’re just lazy. You want to trust you’ve already seen enough for long enough and just change lanes already. Then the car beeps and reminds you that you’re dangerously unaware.
It’s the same when it comes to evaluating our own character. We have blind spots in our identity and personal growth. They’re like dead patches of a plant that make it grow out in a disfigured way. We know they’re there, but we don’t know where. What can we do? You can do the same thing you do before leaving the house. You find a mirror. You find a way to see yourself from the outside. You need people who see you from the outside-in, rather than always working from the inside-out.
In Psalm 19:12, David is frustrated with his faulty mechanism of self-evaluation. He says: “Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.” In verse 13, he goes on to ask God to “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins.” It’s important we understand these as two separate categories—presumptuous sins and hidden ones.
Everyone has a moral compass which they try to follow. God gives every person a baseline sense of right and wrong, and you can harden or soften this conscience. You will attempt to develop your identity according to this moral code. You don’t do this perfectly, but you want to. You want your identity to match your values. For example, if you care about the environment, you’ll reproach yourself for your recycling sins. Those are “presumptuous sins”— you knew the good you ought to do but chose to ignore it. All the while, however, you could be an overly vocal and judgmental environmentalist who annoys everybody around you. You’re completely unaware of that “hidden sin.”
Hidden Sins are Where Real Identity Exploration Happens
To judge who you are and who you should be, you need Scripture and other people. The Bible says that Satan has blinded the eyes of those who don’t believe (2 Corinthians 4:3). This metaphor of light and darkness runs through the whole Bible. God created light. He is light. Satan is darkness and keeps people in darkness. This is doubly tricky because Satan doesn’t exactly tell you that’s what he’s doing. Instead, he points to things you want to do because of your sinful nature and asks, Why are you depriving yourself? These are paths of darkness. Blind spots. But part of us would much rather walk into darkness because there’s things we like to do that only look good in the dark (John 3:19).
We desperately need God to shine the light of his Word on our true and best self. Who is the person you’re supposed to be? God knows the answer to that question. But when you cut God out of the picture and try to figure it out on your own, Romans 1:21 says that you become “futile in your thinking.” This doesn’t mean you’re not thinking and reasoning and “making progress” down a dark road. It means the end is futility. You might have a plan for self-improvement, but it amounts to wandering from one end of a cave to another. You’ve moved, but you haven’t accomplished anything.
Understanding yourself better is not so much fun as it might sound at first. As God and other people shine light on who you really are, you will undoubtedly see things you wish you hadn’t. But you will at last be seeing things. You will lose the uncertainty that comes from fumbling about and dressing yourself in the dark, hoping you won’t emerge with horribly mismatched socks and shirt.
During your whole life as a Christian, you’re in the process of slowly recovering your sight. You see “the light of knowledge” when you look at the “glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). The more you look at Jesus, the more you can actually see the world as it is, including yourself. Light gives you clarity and stability. You might not like what you see, but you will at least be more certain of what’s really there.
Turn On The Light
Imagine your identity is like your bedroom. Left to yourself, it’s as if the lights are off all the time. You may have a recurring nightmare that the trailmix you spilled under your bed is attracting ants and mice. You finally get a lamp switched on. You may discover that your trailmix spill is actually quite small and devoid of ants. With the light on, however, you might notice there is a patch of what appears to be mold growing on your exterior wall. That is perhaps not the discovery you wanted to make, but now you have a clearer picture of what to worry about and what not to.
Getting a reliable source of light is the first step of your identity journey. Once you have the light of the Bible and other believers, the big pieces of your identity stop moving around so much. You will begin to appreciate better all the givens in your life and see which are good, which are bad, and which are a little of both. You will see yourself more truly. Most importantly, you will see the person God is making you to be—to look more like Jesus.
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