Blind Spots

Submitted by Chris Mitchell

Standing in my kitchen, a relatively normal argument turned a sharp corner.

"You need help!" my wife said.

I knew she was right.  I didn't tell her that.  At first I disagreed.  Then, when  I saw what she was saying, I just grunted something stupid and mumbled my way out of the argument.  The rest of the week, especially prepping for my sermon, her words kept burning in my ears.

She was telling me something about myself that she knew better than I did.  She could see something I couldn't see.

Who pastors the Pastor?  Seriously.  Who shows us what we are blind to?  Who tells us what's lurking in our blind spots?

We all know we "can't do it alone."  We all tell ourselves, and other people, that "everyone needs care, guidance."  In younger days we nodded while wiser, experienced pastors told us how important it is to have "support."  For me that meant mentoring, coaching.  I usually sought them out, learning lots and lots about life, ministry, but especially about my blind spots.  Somehow, all that fell away and a year or so into planting a church, I was pretty much solo.

And it showed.  Especially in my kitchen, through my wife's eyes.  

A problem I faced (and have seen so many other pastors deal with) was that I was much more comfortable giving pastoral care, discipleship, ministry, and counseling than I was receiving it.  I didn't trust most other pastors, not enough to ask them for this kind of help.  I trusted my peers, maybe even friends, but not in the "can you really help me?" kind of way.  Actually, I didn't trust anyone that much...not enough to point out blind spots.

I found myself, through a series of inexplicable events, eventually sitting in the visitors' cell of a monastery telling a monk, whom I hardly knew, about that day in the kitchen.  My marriage.  Ministry.  Loneliness.  Anxiety.  Mistrust.  Sin.  Confusion.  Pastoring.  In fact, I pretty much told him everything, not in detail, but in spirit.  Thankfully, when I asked him to help me, not even knowing what kind of help I wanted or needed, he agreed.  

We started a relationship, mostly in the mail, with some personal visits sprinkled in, that helped me understand what my wife had been trying to tell me.  Mostly, it helped me look into a relational mirror of sorts and see what I can't see without someone else's help.

It's been over fourteen years since then.  Looking back I realize that mostly what I needed help with, and still need help with, is allowing someone to know me, to help me, giving me new perspectives on things like anger, self deception, self-centeredness, addiction...sin in all of its many forms.  Sin that I can't see by myself.

It's nothing new this whole idea of a trusted elder walking with and nurturing an apprentice.  In fact, we all know that it's biblical.  We know that.

Or do we?  Maybe that's the first thing we don't really see...