During
my first semester at Fuller Seminary, I took a
seminar in historical theology which required a
mammoth term paper. I knew from the start that I
couldn't take this assignment lightly. The
professor of the course, Dr. Geoffrey Bromiley,
was one of the most respected scholars in the
school. He was also known as the most meticulous
reader of student papers. As translator of The
Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,
Bromiley had developed an eye for catching errors
the most conscientious editor would miss.
Evie had taken a secretarial job
with an advertising agency in Pasadena. Her
office was equipped with an IBM mag-card
typewriter, a precursor of the modern word
processor, which allowed her to make corrections
on disk before printing out the final copy. This
state-of-the-art wonder, retailing at $35,000,
was enough to make any grad student saddled with
a major term paper drool. Evie's supervisor
graciously allowed her the use of this
magnificent machine for typing my seminary work.
I determined to be the first
student ever to present an error-free paper to
Dr. Bromiley. After several months of furious
work, I presented the mass of material to Evie,
who typed a draft. Then I scrupulously combed
each page, flagging every mistake. She typed in
the corrections and printed out the final
copy--over one hundred pages without whiteout or
penned corrections--unheard of for a student
paper in 1974. Certain that not a missing comma
had escaped my notice, I proudly handed my tome
to Dr. Bromiley.
When it came back, it looked like
a checkerboard! Scarcely a page had escaped the
vile slash of his pen. Ironically, most of the
mistakes were ones I would have corrected myself
if I had noticed them. It was as though I had
proofed the paper with a blindfold on.
Missing the Obvious
As a writer I now understand the
problem only too well. While you can become adept
at catching others' mistakes, you never spot all
of your own, no matter how hard you try. It's a
problem I continue to experience far too often,
no matter how hard I work at writing.
As much as we'd like to think
otherwise, we have blind spots as writers which
keep us from being good judges of our own work.
I've come not only to appreciate editors but to
believe they are indispensable to good writing.
The parallel to life in general
is only too obvious. We have blind spots that
interfere as we look at our life. These include
attitudes and assumptions that distort our
perception and many preoccupations that keep us
from thinking clearly. We are also suggestible,
usually much more than we realize; we're affected
by our environment, our culture, the opinions of
others, the persuasiveness of advertising. Add
this all together and our view of reality can be
skewed, sometimes dramatically.
The Power of Suggestion
Often the effect is simply
laughable and doesn't greatly affect our destiny.
I'll never forget an experience I had on a Sunday
morning in April 1986, which impressed on me how
I can overlook an important detail and be fooled
by the power of suggestion. A news report the
previous evening had announced that metal
shavings had been discovered in some boxes of a
brand of cereal that was a favorite at our home.
No less than three unopened boxes of it were on
our pantry shelf at the time.
6:30 the next morning found me
groggily staring at these boxes wondering
"should I or shouldn't I?" In my
suspicious frame of mind I did something I rarely
do--I checked the expiration dates on the box
tops. Two read "February 28" and one
"March 6." Now I was really frustrated.
Metal fragments and stale cereal--what a horrible
combination! Other breakfast choices were
untempting, though, so I decided to take the risk
and poured a bowl from the March 6 box.
Fortunately I found no shreds of
metal. But just as I expected, the cereal tasted
bland and the usual crunchiness was gone--exactly
what you would expect from a box of cereal six
weeks out of date. I had to force myself to
finish the bowl.
When Evie woke up, I complained
about the stale cereal and reminded her of the
need to check expiration dates when buying food.
Later, as I was leaving for church, she handed
the cereal box to me and asked me to read the
expiration date aloud. "March 6," I
replied. "Read the whole date,"
she insisted. "March 6, 198--er--7."
Well, of course, I knew that . . .
When I ate cereal from the same
box the next morning, I was pleased to find it
had regained its flavor and crunchiness. But I
was humbled to realize how easily I'd been
tricked by the placebo effect, and this because I
overlooked a critical detail. As small a detail
as it was, it made all the difference in how I
viewed reality on that occasion.
When Blind Spots Are a Serious
Problem
If we're honest, we'll each admit
that we've had many experiences like mine with
the cereal which show that we sometimes look at
life with blinders on. It is fortunate that the
results are often merely amusing. We have the
chance to laugh at ourselves and gain some
priceless stories to share with friends.
There is a more serious side to
the problem, though. We can miss important
opportunities God brings into our life because of
blind spots in our thinking. These can include
golden opportunities for relationships and using
our gifts. It may that be our ideals are
unrealistic: we see a situation as less than
perfect, while God sees it as the right
one for us given who we are. Or it may be that
we're preoccupied with other areas, and the
tyranny of the urgent keeps us from appreciating
what is most important. Or we may simply find it
hard to believe that God will open a door that he
is indeed willing to unlock for us; our need is
for courage and faith.
Grasshoppers and Giants
At one point during the Exodus,
Moses sent twelve spies on a reconnaissance
mission to Canaan. The purpose wasn't to
determine whether they should invade the
promised land--for God had already told them to
do so and had promised them victory--but to
gather the data needed for a battle plan. Still,
a full ten of the twelve returned with a gloomy
majority report: "We are not able to go up
against the people; for they are stronger than
we. The land devours its inhabitants; all the
people that we saw in it are men of great
stature, and we seemed to ourselves like
grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them" (Num
13:31-33 RSV condensed).
In this case, low self-esteem
blinded ten mature leaders to God's intentions
for them. They couldn't see past the limitations
of their physical size. Even worse, they suffered
from a tragically low view of God. They assumed
he was restricted by their limitations. They
failed completely to appreciate his infinite
power and to regard him as faithful to fulfill
his promises.
Their example reminds us of how
we can so radically misjudge our prospects for
success that we convince ourselves we will fail
at a point where God intends us to succeed. We
should take this warning to heart and remember it
often.
The Good News--And the
Challenge
Fortunately there is also reason
for encouragement in what we're saying. The fact
that we have blind spots means we may have
reasons for hope in discouraging situations that
we've overlooked. We can take encouragement
precisely in the fact that we don't always see
things clearly, in other words, for it means
things may not be as bleak as we assume. We can
take heart also in knowing that situations which
seem less than perfect to us may have potential
we haven't yet recognized and may be worth
another look. From God's standpoint they may be
the right situations for us and in time will
prove to be so.
All of this points to the need
for each of us to have people in our life who are
adept at pointing out our blind spots. We need
those special individuals who view our lives
optimistically, see our potential better than we
do, and are gifted at helping us recognize where
we're missing the whole picture. Such people come
in the form of friends, spouses, teachers,
pastors, counselors, Bible-study members,
employers and fellow employees. Like ours, their
judgment will be fallible at times. Yet when we
open ourselves to their assistance, God will use
them to help us better understand his will and to
gain the courage to take steps of faith.
In some cases their help can make
an enormous difference in our destiny. I think of
a friend of mine who found an excellent
opportunity for marriage because a counselor
encouraged her to take a second look at someone
whose offer she was ready to reject. Jeff LeSourd
was eager to marry Nancy Oliver. Nancy loved Jeff
as a friend, but not romantically. An insightful
counselor pointed out to Nancy that her emotional
side had been so severely damaged through an
abusive childhood that she was incapable of
falling in love with the sort of man who would be
right for her to marry. Her only hope for finding
a healthy marriage was to make the decision more
with her mind than her heart.
Jeff had all
the qualities of compassion, maturity and
spiritual strength that Nancy longed for in a
husband. Her counselor advised her to accept
Jeff's proposal, even though she wasn't in love
with him. Nancy followed his advice and married
Jeff. In time she developed strong feelings of
romantic love for Jeff, which have only grown
deeper over more than ten years of happy
marriage. (Nancy relates this story in her own
book, No Longer the Hero.)
Clearing Our Field of Vision
Nancy's example is extreme, to be
sure, and I'm not suggesting everyone should take
such a stark leap of faith in deciding to marry.
Yet her example does challenge each of us to look
for unhealthy patterns in our own decision
making. Our backgrounds affect each of us in ways
that work against our better judgment. In certain
situations we may be prone to instinctive
reactions which do not reflect what is best for
us or even what underneath we most want to do. In
considering particular opportunities, we may be
inclined to focus too much on certain details and
overlook others which if we took them into
account would lead us to a different conclusion
about what to do. How greatly we need those
people who can function as editors in our life,
and help us come to grips with where our thinking
is flawed.
We should pray earnestly that God
will bring these people to us, and draw liberally
on their help in all of our major decisions. The
proverbs promise again and again that through our
interacting with wise friends and counselors, God
will fine-tune our thinking "as iron
sharpens iron" (Prov 27:17). Even more, we
open ourselves more fully to the extraordinary
benefit Paul spoke of when he said, "be
transformed by the renewal of your mind"
(Rom 12:2).
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