Your Blind Spot

"When wisdom enters your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you; understanding will keep you, to deliver you from the way of evil."

(Proverbs 2:10-12)

Didn't see that coming, did you.

It's funny how we are usually very good at seeing the potholes that other people are on a path to fall into, but we rarely, if ever, see our own.

From our own perspective, we can see things coming from every direction, save one; our blind spot.

That's why we need close friends—the kind who will stick closer than a brother—who will warn us when they see us wandering, unaware, towards the edge of a cliff. Friends who are committed to sticking with us in the foxhole of life.

Friends who would literally take a bullet for you—and you for them.

If you are heading down life's road like the Lone Ranger, you had better have a Tonto or two who has your six. You need friends who will tell it to you like it is, even at the risk of offending you.

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend." (Proverbs 27:6)

I've had friends in the past who got in my face and told it to me straight. They told me what I needed to hear when it was something I didn't want to hear. I once wanted to punch a guy for what he said to me. But now, after I've realized what he said to me was the truth, I will be eternally grateful to that friend for telling me what I needed to hear. I'm grateful that he cared enough about me to risk offending me, in order to keep me from falling headlong into a ditch.

He saw my blind spot.

If you've been there through thick and thin with a friend, you've prayed with him, you've shared a good chunk of this life's journey, and you've had his back—then you've earned the right through relationship to speak into his life and warn him of his blind spot when he can't see it.

However, if you haven't proven your friendship through battle-tested relationship, then keep your mouth shut. There's nothing worse than some super-spiritual know-it-all who doesn't really know you, but always seems to have a "word for you."

My true friends who have consistently been there with me in the foxhole of life have earned the right to speak into my life. And I give them Carte Blanche to tell it to me like it is, even if they think it may offend me.

It's a matter of life and death.

If you don't have true friends like this, and your relationships with other Christian men are superficial and shallow, then you are missing out. And even worse, you are vulnerable to attack, and you will get blindsided, if you haven't already. And, trust me Lone Ranger, you will have your ass handed to you by an Enemy who studies you 24/7, and who only comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

And if you don't think that an enemy like this exists, you need look no further than the epidemic of divorce and broken families in this nation. We are at war.

You can't fight this battle alone.

Think of your small group of closest friends like a unit of Marines—a Band of Brothers.

I met a young man a few years ago at a men's retreat who had seen bloody combat as a soldier in Iraq. He watched at least one fellow Marine die on the battlefield. With tears in his Post Traumatic Stress worn eyes, he told us of the camaraderie and the love that his small band of brothers had for one another. All of them would literally take a bullet or fall on an I.E.D. for each other.

They had each other's six.

The following passage perfectly describes this kind of sacrificial love:

"Greater love has no man than this; than to lay down one's life for his friends." —Jesus

Have your friends' six.

Watch his blindside, and then love him enough to warn him of hidden danger when he doesn't see it coming.

He'll be eternally grateful to you.

—I know I am.

—God is Love, and Love Never Fails.