Respectable Sins

I know I have had a lot of book recommendations lately, but I have one more. It is Respectable Sins: Confronting The Sins We Tolerate by Jerry Bridges.

I was not sure what to expect when I opened this book because it could have been rather accusatory and condemning, but turns out that it was not. The author was very vulnerable about his own struggles with "respectable sins." I enjoyed reading it, and the book gave me a lot to think and pray about it.

My life in Christ seems so often to be about my "blind spots." Blind spots to me are different than just plain sin. There are those things in our lives that we are know are sinful, and then there are our blind spots, which still involves our sin but those that we are oblivious to. Maybe an attitude or a quirk or an old/bad habit or something we declare to be part of our "personality" and therefore unchangeable in a take me or leave kind of way. The stuff we justify and the stuff we don't even see about ourselves. Our blind spots. 

The funny thing is the people around us know what our blind spots are because they are the ones that have to deal with our not so great behavior that results from them. And yet, we still don't see them most of the time.

Whatever our blind spots are, and believe me I know I have plenty, they seem to be a part of that interior battle between the self in us versus Christ in us. In our self, we become so used to acting or thinking or feeling a certain way that we grow blind to the negative impact those actions, thoughts, and emotions have on our lives and our relationships. 

We wonder why things aren't working or going right in some aspect of our lives, a friendship, a relationship, our job, our home, and yet the last thing we ask is how we may have contributed to the problem or if we are the problem. Because really, who wants to ask "Am I the problem?" and actually be told that they are. That is a hard pill to swallow.

Whether or not we have the courage to ask others what they view as our blind spots, our best bet is to pray. I have to frequently and consistently ask God to show me my blind spots: the things I do not see about myself and how I may come across to other people. 

Thankfully when we ask, the Lord is often gentle as He reveals to us the things we cannot see. He changes us and mold us so that in our lives there is more of Christ and less of our self. It is the kind of change we can believe in.