Do we scream into the heavens in the middle of the night to hear a faint echo of God’s voice? Do we often toss and turn through the predawn hours of the new day desperately trying to unravel the knot that binds up the contradictions of a personal faith or a public failure? I personally know of these things and I am seeking for a way to move forward in every area of my life. I believe the answer is easily gained with the knowledge of the surrounding darkness with three things: Self-Confession; Self-Awareness; and Self-Correction.
We can blame everything wrong in our lives on the weather, the internet, the price of gasoline, or what we had for breakfast. In fact, for some, the easiest pathway to finding the problems in their lives is simply to find exactly who or what to blame! Self-Confession means we wrap our arms around our failures and find other people or resources to do what we can not do. We all realize we are experts at very little and novices at a few, but most of the world is a total mystery to us! There are a host of people that are very good at something that we can not possibly do and wisdom would be for us to find that person or that resource and allow them inside our exteriors of “perfection”, and find real answers to real problems.
Honesty is always the best policy – unless we are looking in a mirror. The messages of the Law, the Ten Commandments, and the message of love, the Sermon on the Mount, are firmly cemented into our faith, which requires transparency. We must be able to see and say to ourselves when we are looking inward if our Creator is pleased with what He sees. Self-awareness is an honest conversation we have with the person in our mirror. We learn to identify our innate gifts and acknowledge what we probably will never master in just one lifetime. When I look upon my image, I know I am still a work in progress.
Without spiritual and emotional balance, we would all be beating ourselves over our lack of skills and development. But, each of us must honestly admit, through honest self-awareness, our strengths and weaknesses so we can begin maximizing our gifts and minimizing our failures.
There is no value in either self-confession or self-awareness unless all this spiritual navel gazing helps correct what we know is not working for us. A notable author wrote, “self-awareness is insightful processing feedback about oneself to improve one’s effectiveness.”
Therefore, after we look inside, there should be a noticeable change outside. We all die with our dreams, but we have the option of physically, emotionally, and spiritually living in our dreams when we take corrective action and strengthen the core person we know we have been created to be!
What expectations do people have of us that we have never mastered? What unused or underused gifts do we bring? What dream does God have for us that we still have time to pursue and savor? When we can finally admit our failures, we have opportunity to find success by strengthening our shortcomings and deflating our egos. Self-Confession, Self-Awareness, and Self-Correction are never baby steps to take, but when we are willing to shuffle our feet, we will find courage to take the flight of eagles!
