Small Blinders
One of the things I have been noticing lately is how often people will say something like, “you know, if my son or daughter (or wife or husband) had asked me the same question I just asked you, I would have given them the same answer you gave me.” They knew the right answer all along and probably could have repaired whatever was wrong in their life had they been able to see themselves from a different vantage point.
The life problems people bring to me usually involve sin. And sin blinds us to our circumstances. This blindness begins as small blinders blotting out only the smallest things in our lives. Then, as the sin grows, so do the blinders, until we feel like we are living in a cave. The smaller the sin the smaller the blindness. But the blindness begins with the first seemingly insignificant sin and because sin that is not dealt with inevitably it continues to grow. As it does, the cave becomes deeper and darker until the sin or its consequences begin to destroy relationships, bodies to fall apart, or both.
Most of the people I see are generally godly Christians who love God and who strive to walk in a consistent way with him, but some small sin has occurred and has blinded them so that they cannot see themselves or their situation with godly eyes. Sin has jumped up and ensnared them; turning their joy to gloom and their dancing into despair. They have gone from rejoicing in the Lord to complaining to the Lord. They have gone from hearing his voice in everything they see, to listening to their emotions and desires. They have taken their eyes off the goal, forgetting they are in a race, and have been distracted by the pretty baubles they see along the way.
When people come to my office with their problems and sins and I often tell them things they already know. They get to that point in their life because sin has blinded them and made them forget things we already knew. If you have lost the thrill you had when you first met Jesus face to face. If your joy at meeting with God has gone, or was never there; if your dancing in the Spirit has turned to sitting quietly with your hands folded in your lap; if you are beginning to experience physical problems that that doctors are unable to treat or attribute to stress; if you are not cheerfully talking to your family members or friends, you probably need to confess some sins.