Are You Blind to Your Blunders?

Have you ever re-read an email—after you sent it—and discovered a mistake? How about a letter, résumé, or blog post?

Ouch.

I moonlight as a freelance proofreader. As such, I find mistakes in other people’s writing. Typos, misspellings, grammar gaffes. The job isn’t that difficult if one knows the rules. I mean, really—don’t we all clearly and easily see the mistakes of others? Getting paid to do so is the trick.

However, finding my own errors isn’t quite so easy. That’s because I already know what I wanted to say. Therefore, when I read what I’ve written, I “see” what I meant, not what I actually wrote.

Because of my part-time occupation as a fault-finder (Doesn’t sound as nice as proofreader, does it?) I was thrilled one morning this week when I found scriptural support for my work. I may even use the verse as a personal tagline:

Who can discern his errors?

—Psalm 19:12 NIV

Yes! Validation for proofreaders everywhere!

While the line may be a catchy phrase for my business card, there is much more to the message. It continues:

Forgive my hidden faults.

That’s exactly what I need—forgiveness as well as fresh air. I don’t want to harbor those secret sins because eventually they ferment and overflow and stain every good thing I’ve ever done.

Who knows my hidden faults better than our loving Lord? Who better to handle them and make me clean through and through?

I’m so grateful for God's discerning eye on the story of my life. That story will be better, stronger, and sweeter if I allow His cleansing edit.

The question is, will I accept His loving critique, or insist on doing things my way?