A fault you cannot see will not turn up because you search harder. The part of you doing the searching is the part that needs checking. So the real question is practical: how do you set up your life so God and other people can show you what you miss? The answer here is a seven-day practice. You decide in advance that you have blind spots, ask God to search you, choose a few people allowed to tell you the truth, and practice hearing them before you defend yourself. You can do it alone, or with a small group that meets once before the week and once after.
You will need a notebook, a Bible, and the names of one or two people who know you well. Anything you write down is yours. Nothing here asks you to tell anyone else what you discover.
Before the week begins: one honest observation
Think of the most recent time someone corrected you about something small: your tone, a habit, the way you handled a conversation. Write down three things as plainly as you can.
- What they said, in their words as best you remember them.
- The first sentence you said back, or the first one you thought.
- Whether you ever went back and seriously asked yourself if they were right.
Do not judge the entry yet. It is your starting point, and you will read it again at the end of the week.
Two kinds of searching in Scripture
Start with a prayer. Psalm 139 ends with David asking God to examine him: “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). In the KJV, “try me” means test me, the way metal is tested. Read the whole psalm. It is poetry, so treat it as a prayer rather than a method.
Then turn to a story. Acts 6 describes a problem in the church in Jerusalem: “there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration” (Acts 6:1). Read verses 1-7.
Before reading further, answer two questions in your notebook for each passage. Who brings the hidden problem to light? And what does the person who needed correcting do once it is named? Take your time, and write down what the text actually says before you write what you think it means.
Now compare your notes. In Psalm 139, David does not promise to search himself thoroughly. He asks God to search him, and the psalm opens by saying God already knows him completely. David is not giving God new information. He is giving God permission. In Acts 6, the problem comes to light through the people who were being neglected. The leaders had not noticed it. B.J. Thompson draws attention to how the apostles responded: “they acknowledged that they could be wrong, they could be missing it, and they appointed Greek deacons to make sure that that wouldn’t happen again.” Acts 6 is narrative. It describes what one church did and does not set out a procedure every church must follow. Still, the pattern is clear. The leaders treated the complaint as information rather than as an attack, and they changed something concrete.
If your answers differed from this, keep them. You may have noticed something else in the text. This week relies on both kinds of searching. You will pray the psalm, and you will go looking for your own Acts 6 moment instead of waiting for it to show up in the middle of a conflict.
Why other people see what you cannot
Thompson observes, “When you come into conflict with something, that’s when you recognize it’s an issue.” Blind spots rarely appear during quiet reflection. They surface when your life rubs against someone else’s. Lisa Fields describes this through a story a pastor told her. A man in his sixties only grasped what his Black friends had been describing after he watched one of them treated unjustly by a police officer. Hearing about it had not done the work. In her words, “So it’s like you’re confronted with what you missed.”
That is why this week does not depend on your own insight. Your intentions are vivid to you. Other people see your effect on them. Thompson makes this concrete with his own household, where his kids, his wife and his friends all point out things he does not see. He also names the move that keeps a correction from landing: “I need her to point out what I don’t see, but I can’t make a sweeping statement about her in order to neutralize what she said.”
The people who see your blind spots are not always the people who share your habits. Fields came from a Pentecostal and charismatic background and then studied at a strongly fundamentalist seminary. She found each world carried something the other lacked: “I can help you learn how to study, but you can help me pray.” Sometimes your best mirror is someone whose strengths are your weaknesses.
One more line from Fields will matter by the middle of the week: “We can’t get past something we are afraid to confess.” Fear keeps blind spots in place. The week is built to make honest admission a little less frightening, one small step at a time.
The week
- Day one: admit it before you know what it is. Pray Psalm 139:23-24 aloud. Write one sentence in your own words saying you believe something in you is currently hidden from you. Do not guess what it is. Below it, list two areas where you feel most sure you are in the right. Leave the list alone for now.
- Day two: choose your mirrors. Write down one or two people who see you across ordinary days and whom you trust. Test each name with a question Fields asks about any relationship you are counting on: “Are they allowed to challenge you?” Has this person ever told you something hard, and did they still want to be around you afterward? If no one passes the test, use the alternative at the end of day four.
- Day three: prepare your response before you ask. Decide now what you will say when they answer, so your defense does not decide for you. Write out a simple reply such as thank you, let me think about that. Underneath it, write Thompson’s sentence: “And I have to have the humility to respond and go, you know what, maybe you’re right.” The key word is maybe. You are not agreeing in advance. You are refusing to let your first reaction settle the question.
- Day four: ask one question. In person or by phone, ask one of the people you chose: What is something about me you think I might not see? Let them finish. Do not explain your reasons, correct their details, or turn the question back on them. Use the reply you prepared. If you had no one to ask, take a different but equally real step: name one relationship you could deepen, and do one specific thing toward it this week, such as a meal or an honest conversation.
- Day five: notice your first moves. Without rereading what they told you, write down what your mind did in the first hour. Did you build a rebuttal? Think of a label for the person? Remember a time they were wrong? Thompson describes a common pattern: “instead of running to the cross, we run to comfort.” Name your own version of comfort as precisely as you can.
- Day six: bring it to God. Return to Psalm 139. Put what you heard before God and ask plainly whether it is true. Then reread your list of certainties from day one and ask whether anything on it connects to what you heard. Let the answer form slowly. It may be yes, no, or partly. If you need to, ask your friend one follow-up question, for an example or for what they noticed, not to argue.
- Day seven: respond and return. If you found something true, tell the person who said it and name one concrete change, the way the apostles did in Acts 6. If you concluded they were mistaken, thank them anyway for trusting you. Then read the entry you wrote before the week began and compare how you responded then with how you responded this week. Thompson says, “At the cross, there’s room for me to be wrong.” Write down what that would change, if you believed it, about the next correction you receive. If you pray today, consider praying as Fields suggests the prophets did when they repented, in plural language: “God, don’t just forgive me, forgive us.” The fault you found is yours, but you are not the only one who needs grace.
When the feedback is mistaken, or not safe
Being open to correction is not the same as accepting everything anyone says. People misread one another, and some criticism says more about the speaker than about you. Fields points to Paul confronting Peter in Galatians 2 as an example that cuts both ways. The confrontation was real and necessary, and Peter remained a brother whose other words did not become worthless because he was wrong on one issue. She urges taking challenges issue by issue rather than painting with a broad brush. Apply that to the feedback you receive and to the person who gave it.
To test feedback you doubt, look for confirmation outside the conversation. Ask a second trusted person whether they have seen the same thing. Check it against what Scripture actually asks of you. Watch over the next few weeks for the pattern to show up again. One voice can be wrong. Several independent signals pointing the same way deserve your attention.
Thompson hopes that when people raise an issue, “hopefully they’re not trying to shame you, but hopefully they’re trying to share with you” in a way that honors your dignity. Honest correction from someone who loves you is different from contempt or control. If the person you would naturally ask regularly belittles, frightens or controls you, this practice is not for that relationship. Choose someone else, and consider talking with a counselor or pastor you trust about what is happening. If a partner or family member is harming you, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233.
Using this guide with a group
Meet before day one to read Psalm 139 and Acts 6 together and work through the observation questions. Each person chooses their own mirrors privately. The group is not the place where faults get named; asking members to point out one another’s blind spots in front of everyone quickly turns into a trial. Meet again after day seven and invite anyone who wants to describe what the process was like. No one needs to say what was named. Whoever leads should take part fully, including asking the question on day four.
Questions for discussion
- In Psalm 139, David asks God to search what God already knows. What changes when a prayer gives permission instead of providing information?
- The apostles in Acts 6 heard the complaint from the people being neglected. In your church, family or workplace, whose experience puts them in a position to see what you miss?
- Thompson says blind spots surface through conflict. What kind of contact or friction is missing from your life, so that some of your assumptions have never been tested?
- What was your first move on day five, and what does it tell you about where you look for safety?
- How would you tell the difference between a correction you should accept and one you should respectfully set aside? What evidence would you look for?
- Fields says we cannot get past something we are afraid to confess. What makes admitting a fault feel dangerous, and what would make it feel less so?
Thompson says plainly that God never made us to see everything. This week does not end with you seeing everything either. It ends with a test you can repeat. The next time someone says something about you that you did not want to hear, will there already be a place in your life for it to land?