Many years ago I was involved with a training company that concentrated on one single aspect of life and behaviour, and that was Blindspots. Our thinking here was that if there’s anything that can stop us being everything that God has made us to be, it’s our blindspots. The training modules we came up with at the time concentrated on making our delegates aware of the limitations of our own certainties and the need to constantly remain alive to the possibility that what we believe to be the truth of a matter may well not be.
How does this work? Well, without wanting to oversimplify things, take this as an example. I may well have the impression that Blue Nun wine (heard of that?) is the absolute top of the vintage when it comes to white wine. It’s what my parents drank when there was any celebration and they thought it was top-notch, and great value too. My measuring stick, then, for all things white wine is Blue Nun and all other white wines will, knowingly or unknowingly, be measured against it. As a result, many outstanding white wines will be written off as being too dry and undrinkable, Blue Nun being a sweeter wine. I have a blindspot. And this becomes a problem when I start to condemn other white wines because of it.
Perhaps a better example is that of Woolworths, a department store that most readers will hopefully remember, or at least be aware of. My understanding is that Woolworth’s management thought that they were, as a company, just about impregnable. After all, they were a household name, present in just about every High St., they had been around for at least two generations, what could go wrong? They had a blindspot. They couldn’t see the writing on the wall for the High St., they didn’t keep abreast of what online was going to do. Their blindspot led to their demise.
In many respects, Sozo is all about blindspots. Father God (Jesus or Holy Spirit) reveals to us the lies we’ve been believing about Them and about us. Often, we’ve lived with these lies for the greater part of our lives, they’ve been blindspots. Blindspots, what we believe about each of the Godhead, will have affected not just our relationships with Them, but our beliefs about ourselves, they’ll have changed our very being.
Think, then, how these same blindspots could and will have changed our relationships with those around us. Of course, some of our blindspots can be charming, there can be things about us that others love and we just don’t see in ourselves, but it’s those less likeable traits that work against us. Blindspots can be those special things that our partners love, but they can also be those things that, insidiously, work against the very fabric of relationships. We may not recognise, for example, that we question every motive for whatever our partner does, perhaps because it’s learned behaviour from a parent, but this can be destroying our partner’s love and trust… and we just don’t know we’re doing it.
How should we respond? By giving those we love permission to speak into our lives without us taking offence. By being aware of how those we don’t know so well respond to us, a negative response may indicate a blindspot in the way we’ve acted towards them.
And, by continually asking God to reveal your ways to you, and His ways to you too!