Who Has Your Blind Side?

The Danger of Your Blind Side: Why We All Need Someone to Tell Us the Truth

We all have a blind side. Unless you're a mom-they somehow seem to have eyes in the back of their heads-there are parts of our lives we simply cannot see. Just like when you're driving and checking your mirrors before changing lanes, we need help covering the areas we can't monitor ourselves.

But here's the uncomfortable truth: while we spend our lives trying to manage our blind spots, the enemy knows exactly where they are. And he likes to park there.

The Faithful Wound vs. The Enemy's Kiss

Proverbs 27:5-6 gives us a jarring reality check: "Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses."

Read that again slowly. A wound from a friend is better than a kiss from an enemy.

This goes against everything our comfort-seeking hearts want to believe. We surround ourselves with people who validate our choices, affirm our decisions, and tell us what we want to hear. We curate our social circles carefully-people who agree with our viewpoints, our politics, our lifestyle choices. When someone says something that challenges us, we hit "unfollow." We call it "protecting our peace" or "setting healthy boundaries."

The enemy calls it perfect.

Because a person with no faithful wounds in their life is a person who is completely unguarded on their blind side.

The Deception We Can't See

The hardest part about deception is that the deceived person doesn't know they're deceived. They've bought the lie. They're hook, line, and sinker-so enamored with the bait that they don't see the hook ready to sink in.

We deceive ourselves in countless practical ways:

• "I can pay off this boat later."
• "I'll quit anytime I want."
• "I'll tithe when I get more money."
• "It's okay to spend time with that person who's not my spouse-it won't become an affair."
• "I don't need to exercise today; I had a hard day."

Nobody wakes up one morning and decides to destroy their life. It starts with being deceived. It starts with thinking something is innocent when it's not. We don't see the drift happening until we've already crashed.

The enemy doesn't need you to know you're drifting. He just needs you comfortable, thinking there's nothing to see here. Nothing in your blind spot. Keep looking forward. Don't look over there.

The Ancient Warning from Babel

This isn't a new problem. It goes all the way back to Genesis 11 and the Tower of Babel.

The people said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves."

Notice their motivation: build a tower to reach heaven without God's involvement, and make a name for themselves. They wanted the appearance of reaching God while actually glorifying themselves.

Sound familiar?

We do the same thing. We construct lives that have an appearance of godliness but deny its power. We build towers that look holy from the outside while we take the credit on the inside. We create a form of religion while keeping God at arm's length from the areas we want to control ourselves.

God scattered the people at Babel largely because they were more into themselves than into reflecting the Creator.

The Mirror That Forgets

James 1:22-24 warns us: "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like."

How many times have we sat in church and felt God speaking directly to our hearts? We felt convicted. We felt the Spirit moving. We knew exactly what we needed to change.

And then we walked to our car, drove home, and by the time we arrived, the feeling had subsided and nothing changed.

We heard the word but didn't apply it. We looked in the mirror and walked away unchanged. We remained deceived.

James goes on to say that if you consider yourself religious but can't control your tongue, you deceive yourself and your religion is worthless. The tongue is the blind side you can hear. Eventually, what's on the inside comes out. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Pure Religion Builds Outward

James defines pure religion with two components that directly oppose what happened at Babel:

1. Looking after orphans and widows in their distress - building outward for His name toward people nobody else is building for
2. Keeping yourself from being polluted by the world - guarding your blind side from the slow drift, the rationalization, the justification one compromise at a time

Babel built upward for their own name. Pure religion builds outward for His name-from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth.

The Question You Must Answer

Here's the main question: Who has your blind side? Who has the right to tell you the truth in love? Who do you allow to tell you what you don't want to hear? If somebody did tell you what you don't want to hear, would you receive it? Or would you walk away offended?

The gospel still works. But it requires us to actually apply it.

The Practical Step Forward

1. Write down the names of 2-5 people you will give permission to speak into your life
2. Contact them today and tell them they have permission to tell you what you need to hear
3. When they do speak truth to you, receive it without offense

We all have a blind side. The enemy knows exactly where it is. The question is: who are you allowing to help you guard it?

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