It was back-to-back days of humiliation, first my dad and later my uncle. Several years ago, standing with my dad on my grandmother’s deck, my dad tapped my stomach and commented something like, “Getting a little pudgy there, boy.” The very next day my uncle made a similar comment about the extra weight he thought I was carrying.
I was dumbfounded, not that they said something but that they were right. I see me every day. My dad and my uncle living hundreds of miles away from me saw me a few times a year or less. The changes to them were much more obvious. I remember saying out loud, “How did this happen?” How did others see my significant weight gain, but I didn't?
I had been warned. John Abbott, a former marine, workout enthusiast and 25 years my senior, told me, after an amazing meal prepared by his wife, that my eating habits would catch up with me one day. In my early 30s, I scoffed. They hadn’t shown up yet. A decade later my dad and uncle confirmed John's prophetic words.
I had been warned about other matters too. My freshman year of high school I mouthed off to a senior. He could have popped me upside the head; instead, Juan said, “Mike, one day your mouth is going to get you into trouble.” I thought I was funny. I wasn’t. I was mean, hurtful, and sometimes vicious. Juan was right.
One consequence of the fall is a lack of self-awareness (James 1:22-23). Self-awareness is how an individual consciously knows and understands their own character, feelings, motives, and desires. Therein lies the problem: the Bible teaches us we are incapable of knowing and understanding self accurately.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9).
We think our character professes a righteous quality, but it doesn’t. So, we justify our actions when confronted about our behavior. We conclude we are better than we really are and that we are right when we are wrong.
We think our feelings – happy or sad, mellow or angry, hurt or trusting – are right because they are our feelings, and no should ever be able to tell us how to feel.
We think our motives are honorable, but are they? Is the motive the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31) or is the motive serving self?
We think our desires are righteous, but are they? Could the desire come from jealousy, hatred, greed, revenge, or pride?
The lesson over time is not How I Became Self-Aware and How You Can Too. The lesson over time is I’ll never be self-aware if awareness of self comes from me. I can be self-aware if awareness comes form outside of me. The Bible gives at least two aids for self-awareness.
The James text referenced earlier describes the Bible like a mirror, reflecting to its reader what the reader actually is. Proverbs 27:6 lauds the benefits of a friend who aids another in becoming self-aware, “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”
Somewhere along the way I picked up the line, “It’s not the lies people say about me that bothers me; it’s the truth they say about me that bothers me.” The reality is I am not as aware of myself as I confidently assert. I need the Word of God and the input of Christians to show me what I’m really like so that I can become what I want to be like – I want to be like Jesus.
Father,
Before you gave me new life, I was dead in my trespasses and sins. And I had no idea of my condition. You opened your word to me. You showed me my real self, a rebel against a holy God. You offered life to me. You instilled faith in me. You made me your own. Thank you. Would you continue the work you began to make me like your Son, my Savior, Jesus? Use your word to expose what remains unchanged. Use my brothers and sisters-in-Christ to prod me toward Christlikeness and away from the delusion that I am good like I am. This making me aware of self will be more expressions of your grace. And continue to do this until I am with you in heaven. Don’t let me fool myself as an old man, thinking I know me without need of the mirror of the Word or the input of the church.
Mike VerWay
Pastor for Preaching & Vision