Blind Spots
Sometime around our third year of marriage, Julie and I took a personality profile that was popular at the time. One of the statements in my results went something like this: “you are the kind of person that has no trouble speaking directly about an issue or confronting things head on.” I remember thinking, “yep, that’s me.” It seemed whoever put this together was one smart cookie. They really get me.
But then came next statement: “People who show this tendency may often find it challenging to respond well when they are spoken to directly or confronted in a similar way that they might tend to do with others.” I had to laugh after reading this because now it was clear that this person didn’t know what they were doing since this didn’t describe me at all. I had to show Julie, since this proved the survey was a waste of our time. After reading it, she laughed as well, but not for the same reason. She laughed, and then very gently said, “it’s absolutely true of you.” Ouch. Blind spot exposed.
It was hard to hear that I was the kind of person who could “dish it out but not take it.” That experience has often served as a powerful reminder that we all have blind spots. In fact, if you think you don’t have a blind spot, that is what we call a blind spot. People have blind spots, and so do churches (since a church is just a collection of people, all with their own tendencies and traits and blind spots). This is part of the reason why working through the letters to the seven churches in Revelation chapters two and three is so powerful. We see Christ confronting the tendencies of seven different churches, exposing their blind spots, and calling them to correction and a renewed commitment to following Christ. We will relate to some churches better than others, but it’s important to have ‘ears to hear’ with every message given in Scripture. The minute you think, “that’s not me… I don’t struggle with that,” that should be a red flag that maybe there is a hint of a blind spot. At least we should pray that God would protect us from pride in any area of strength, and help us to walk in repentance in areas of weakness.
Many Bible Scholars see in these seven churches a relation to seven key eras in church history leading up to today. This might be true, and can be useful if we are willing to not just observe how these messages might have applied to other churches from some other era, but to first and foremost ask of each letter, “God, what are you wanting me to see in this? What message do you have for our church today, even if we aren’t aware of the issue right now?” This is what it means to have ears to hear!
We later found out that this particular personality profile was designed by the guy who lived directly behind us! After learning this I wanted to look away when he gave the friendly neighbor wave from his driveway, like he had somehow peered into my soul without permission. But this was a silly response (he had no idea we had even taken the survey). Later we realized what a gift this was to have him nearby. We ended up meeting with him to gain further insight into the study, to learn all we could from it and try to grow and improve. My prayer is that our study of the seven churches of Revelation would help Valley View become the best church we can be in this season God has for us in the SouthEnd of Louisville! Last week we looked at Thyatira. Read ahead in 3:1-6 to prepare for our study of the church in Sardis this Sunday.