Have you ever missed seeing something that, on reflection, was so blindingly obvious, you wondered what on earth was wrong with your sight? Times when others thought, ‘surely no one could have missed seeing that’, and so did you, with the benefit of hindsight. Yet you did indeed fail to see it at the time?

While listening to someone share on a reflection the story of David and Nathan the prophet recently, although they took a slightly different focus to the story, something else struck me. On reading about David’s reaction to the story Nathan told, and his subsequent prayer of repentance as recorded in Psalm 51, he seemed to have been genuinely oblivious to the sin he had committed.

On the one hand, you may be thinking, surely no one can be that oblivious to the sin of murder and adultery? But David does seem to be.

In 2 Samuel 12, we read, “So the Lord sent Nathan the prophet to tell David this story: “There were two men in a certain town. One was rich, and one was poor. The rich man owned a great many sheep and cattle. The poor man owned nothing but one little lamb he had bought. He raised that little lamb, and it grew up with his children. It ate from the man’s own plate and drank from his cup. He cuddled it in his arms like a baby daughter. One day a guest arrived at the home of the rich man. But instead of killing an animal from his own flock or herd, he took the poor man’s lamb and killed it and prepared it for his guest.”

David was furious. “As surely as the Lord lives,” he vowed, “any man who would do such a thing deserves to die! He must repay four lambs to the poor man for the one he stole and for having no pity.” Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man!”

David was so furious about the injustice shown to the poor man in the story, that he was ready to have the rich man killed, right after making sure the rich man had restored four lambs to the poor man. He clearly did not see himself in that story, otherwise he would not have been so quick to pronounce the death penalty on the rich man.

The question that came to mind when I read this was, how could David, who must have known God’s law pretty well, not have recognised that what he did was sinful, until God sent Nathan to confront him? Did he think that this was one of those cases were ‘all is fair in love and war’, or that as king, he felt had the right to do that? Or, as obvious as it is to us now, was it a genuine blind spot for him? Being someone who had fought many wars, was he numb to acts like this? Incidentally, David had almost done a similar thing in 1 Samuel 25, in the case of Abigail and Nabal, where, driven by emotions, he nearly carried out needless bloodshed. Thankfully, Abigail’s wisdom stopped him (1 Samuel 25:32-34). In that case though, he at least waited for her husband to die before taking her for himself.

The second question that comes to mind is, do I have such blind spots? Areas where I am oblivious to the fact that I am walking in sin? Areas where my conscience has over time become deadened to the fact that something I’m doing is sinful? Are there even cases where I recognise that sin in others lives, but not in myself, as was the case for David? I learnt something recently, that we tend to be angry over other people’s sins and heartbroken over our own sins, when we should actually be angry over our own sin and heartbroken over the sins of others. This posture considerably influences the way we act when confronted with sin in ourselves and in others.

David was not the only one that needed an external wake up call due to a blindspot. Jonah 3 tells us the story of another king, the King of Nineveh (capital of Assyria). Depending on how much of the Old Testament you know, you might recognise Assyria as one of Israel’s enemies. Not only that, they were recorded as being a wicked people. Hence God telling Jonah, “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.” (Jonah 1:2, NLT). Nahum refers to Nineveh as “the city of murder and lies”, crammed with wealth, and “never without victims”, with “countless casualties, heaps of bodies – so many bodies that people stumble over them” (Nahum 3:1,2,3, NLT). Pause a moment to imagine a city like that, a city where people don’t care who they destroy and kill in their quest for wealth and power, a city where dead bodies litter the streets. That was the extent of their wickedness. Little wonder Jonah wasn’t exactly keen on heading there.

And yet, after what must surely be the shortest sermon on record, with Jonah basically shouting to crowds, “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” (Jonah 3:4), their response was amazing.

“The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow. When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city:

“No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”” (Jonah 3: 5-9, NLT)

Again, the question there is, prior to Jonah’s warning, were the Ninevites really so blind to their wickedness that they did not realise just how wicked their actions were? What is interesting is that, going by Jonah’s pithy sermon, he does not actually tell them what they had done wrong, neither does he really say who sent him. He simply pronounces judgement. Yet, the King and people of Nineveh are so sorrowful and repentant. Here the king seems to realise that their way are evil and violent, because that is what he admonishes the people to stop. Again, was wickedness simply a pattern of life in Nineveh? A pattern which had existed for so long, and was perhaps so ingrained in the culture, that nobody really paused to question the impact of their ways? Do our lives have any such parallels?

Thankfully, God being a merciful God was moved by their repentance and did not destroy them then (Jonah 3:10).

Then there was Saul, who also needed external eye salve. Saul aggressively persecutes Christians until he encounters Jesus on his journey to, you guessed it, persecute more Christians! (Acts 9).

Acts 9:1 (NLT) notes that “Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to kill the Lord’s followers.” Wow, imagine being that eager to kill. As a Pharisee, he would have been very familiar with the sixth commandment, but that did not stop him. He was a man on a mission, possibly thinking he was doing the world a favour by ridding it of that blaspheming bunch.

What I find interesting is Saul’s response to Jesus. When Jesus asks, “Saul! Saul! Why are you persecuting me?”, Saul says, ““Who are you, Lord?” (Acts 9:3-5).

Somehow, in that moment, without even knowing who was talking, beyond knowing that it was someone he was persecuting (as that was all that had been said then), Saul was already using the term “Lord.” I wonder, did Saul ever wonder if there was some truth in Jesus’ claims, like Nicodemus, or was he always dead set on disputing the claims of Jesus’ followers and ridding the world of them?

 Incidentally, after his encounter with Jesus, he was struck blind in the physical. It seems ironic, doesn’t it, given that blind men encountered Jesus and received their sight (Mark 8:22-26, 10:46-52, John 9). Yet here we have a sighted man encountering Jesus and becoming blind (Acts 9). I think Jesus was trying to drive home the point of just how blind Saul had been, by allowing him to experience it in the physical. Thankfully after this encounter, his eyes were opened and he did a full 180 degree mission turnaround.

A lot of these sins seem so obvious, and yet in these three stories, there was a sense of the people involved being so unaware, they needed an external jolt. For a lot of us, though, our hidden sins may not be that obvious. It might be things that may not even be clearly written against in the Bible, but are things that God is not pleased with, perhaps because of the effect it has on us or on other people.

Which is why Psalm 19:12 (BSB) says “Who can discern his own errors? Cleanse me from my hidden faults.” Or as the AMP puts it, “Who can understand his errors or omissions? Acquit me of hidden (unconscious, unintended) faults.” What is especially important though is the context of this verse, which is a passage declaring praise for God’s law, testimony, precepts and commandments. Simply put,it tells us how wonderful God’s Word is, and the impact it can have on our lives. And in so doing, it answers a third question, how can I know if I have any hidden faults? By examining ourselves through the lens of God’s Word. Verse 8 says “The precepts of the LORD are right, bringing joy to the heart; the commandments of the LORD are radiant, giving light to the eyes.” It is God’s Word that gives light to our eyes, enabling us see things that we may be otherwise blind to.

It is important though that we are humble enough to acknowledge our fallibility.

In John 9:39-41 (NLT), after Jesus has just healed a blind man, the following conversation takes place, “Then Jesus told him (the blind man), “I entered this world to render judgment—to give sight to the blind and to show those who think they see that they are blind.” Some Pharisees who were standing nearby heard Him and asked, “Are you saying we’re blind?” ““If you were blind, you wouldn’t be guilty,” Jesus replied. “But you remain guilty because you claim you can see.” Are we claiming that we can see just fine, with no blindspots, that all is well, and we have no sin in us? 1 John 1:8 clearly tells us that if we make such a claim, we are deceiving ourselves and not living in truth. Or perhaps we are listening to the world, and to people who tell us that what we are doing is okay, even when what we may be doing is clearly against God’s Word and Will.

In Revelation 3:16-19 (ESV), we see another example of another group which was ‘blind’ to their state, and this time around, it was a church! In a letter to the church in Laodicea, Jesus says, “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”

Here we can see that Jesus is exhorting them not to define the condition of their lives by material wealth, which in the eyes of the world is a sign of success, but rather to seek true wealth from Jesus Christ, to listen to Him rather than to the world. For this is how light floods those blind spots, exposing potential hazards we are at risk of tripping over.

I should say that this blog post was not written to fuel angst about sin in our lives, to the point where we live under a cloud of fear, scared of what sin we might be committing that we don’t even realise. Neither is it for us to make it our main goal in life to search for sin in our lives and that of others. That would be exhausting. Incidentally, in all three examples I used, it was God who took the initiative to reach out, none of them seemed to be searching for any sin. Which is why what Jesus reminds us of in Revelations 3:19 is so important, that it is those He loves that he rebukes and disciplines. If Jesus did not love us, He would not care about us becoming all that God made us to be, a process that includes exposing and pruning dead works.

As such, where there are occasions when we might be oblivious to the wrong we are doing, shining the light of God’s Word in our hearts by reading, reflecting, meditating, practicing will help open our eyes to it. Even if we are not doing all these, God still does not give up on us. He may send people to talk to us, our own Nathans and Jonahs. He may even speak directly to us. Either way, because He loves us, and knows the dangers those blind spots may pose, He will do all He can to expose them to us. The question then will be, are we willing to listen and act, to use the eye salve Jesus so generously offers, and take the corrective action required?

I pray that as we reflect on this, we will be filled with an overwhelming sense of just how merciful our God is, of how much He loves us, and the great plans He has for us. As such, even when the evil one tries to derail us from God’s great plans by taking advantage of our blind spots to subtly or brazenly introduce hazards in our journey, may God open our eyes through His Word, His Spirit, His other children. And may we respond with humility, genuine repentance and total trust and confidence in God’s ongoing work of sanctification in our lives. Amen and Amen.

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