Being blind to your own faults.

Bible verse for today: Psalm 19:12 But who can discern their own errors? Forgive my hidden faults (NIV). As humans to claim credit and reject blame is second nature to us not because we want to but because that's the way we are generally wired. Seeing the faults of others while remaining blind to our own faults.

The truth is, it only takes God's grace to open your eyes to see your own faults clearly. King David felt he never did anything wrong by taking away Bathsheba from Uriah until God chose to open his eyes to his misdeeds through Nathan the prophet.

Here is what the Word for Today devotional by United Christian Broadcasters (UCB) says:

There are parts of yourself you’ll never see without God’s help. In one sense, you know yourself better than anyone else does. You alone have access to your inner thoughts, feelings and judgments. In another sense, you know yourself worse than anyone else does. Why? Because we rationalise, justify, minimise, forget, and embellish—and we don’t even know we’re doing it. We all fall for the self-serving bias. We claim too much credit and accept too little blame. We pay attention to experts who agree with our opinions, while ignoring or discounting all evidence to the contrary. Our memories are not simply faulty, they’re faulty in favour of our ego.

The book Egonomics cites a survey in which 83 per cent of people were confident in their ability to make good decisions, but only 27 per cent were confident in the ability of the people they worked closely with to make good decisions. We’re stunned when someone sees past our defences into our souls. It’s not that they’re geniuses, it’s just that we’re sitting in our own blind spot and without the work of the Holy Spirit within us, much of the time we can’t even see our sin. The Psalmist wrote: ‘How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart? Cleanse me from these hidden faults. Keep your servant from deliberate sins! Don’t let them control me. Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer’ (vv. 12-14 NLT). That’s a prayer you should pray—every day.

It is so hard to see our faults sometimes because we don't let the Holy Spirit guide us and when we finally acknowledge them, our guilt may make us run away from God.

We forget that sin and not guilt is what separates us from God. Guilt is the first step to repentance which leaves a contrite Christian at a crossroad - either he goes back to his past or faces God and deal with the issue.

Letting our guilt overshadow our thoughts builds it up, pushes you away from God and may likely fall into the hands of the devil during crisis.

The Word for Today devotional by United Christian Broadcasters (UCB) says:

Sometimes trying to see the truth about yourself is like trying to see inside your own eyeballs. ‘…Who can discern their own errors…?’ the Psalmist asked. Fortunately, you’re not left on your own. The Spirit is already at work in you. Your job is simply to listen and respond. Guilt isn’t your enemy, sin is. God’s Spirit will often bring a sense of conviction, and when it does, the proper response isn’t to try and suppress the guilt but to deal with the issue. When you don’t, those issues can build up like cholesterol in your arteries. At a moment of great crisis, Samson arose to exert his strength, ‘…but he did not know that the Lord had left him’ (Judges 16:20 NIV). He’d become callous and lost his sensitivity to God.

Our bodies have an amazing capacity to warn us about what ails them, if we learn to read the signs. Chest pains may indicate heart trouble and there are more subtle clues. Most of us will have seen the TV ad from the NHS about detecting when someone is having a stroke (FAST) Face, Arms, Speech, Time. God will enable you to find the truth about your soul if you’re open and willing. Left to yourself, you will usually rationalise or defend yourself. You’ll ‘…call evil good and good evil…’ (Isaiah 5:20 NIV). At the other extreme, you can become a neurotic over-analyser. Madame Guyon warned against ‘depending on the diligence of your own scrutiny rather than on God for the knowledge and discovery of our sin.’ What’s the answer? Allow your thoughts and responses to be guided by the Holy Spirit.