Revealing Your Dark Side

Revealing Your Dark Side

Everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

Romans 3:23

We all have sinned. We all fall short. What does this mean?

It means every one of us, no matter how nice in general, has tendencies toward meanness, selfishness, envy, materialism, cruelty, dishonesty, lust, irresponsibility, and so on. But before you get too discouraged about our badness, think about it this way. Whatever miserable parts you have, if brought into the open, actually represent your potential for goodness. Why? Because good character is hammered out not in the absence of negative traits but in spite of them. It’s your struggle to overcome greed, for example, that will make your generous spirit, once honed, far more prized, meaningful, and valuable than if it had come more easily or more naturally to you. There is no virtue in not acting on a desire that doesn’t exist.

Yet so many people, especially well-intentioned people, work diligently to block out or bury their baser parts, to keep them from being quite that closely known by other people. They operate under the false assumption that if they ignore such bad tendencies, their dark side will disappear. Of course, that doesn’t work. Stronger people come to terms with their rotten parts, eventually learning why they have them, and most importantly, how to transform them as best they can.

Transformation for the Christian, of course, begins with confession to God. He knows how short we fall from the glorious standard—it’s his standard. But he also loves us with an everlasting love, and he is faithful to help us when we ask him for help.

Honest confession to someone else can help too. “I’ve got to tell you, I really struggle with celebrating somebody else’s success,” you might say. That’s all. That’s enough to test the waters with one another and see if you can risk going further. Your spouse should be a safe confidant for most issues, but consider a prayer partner as well.

The point is that we will never be known until we share the parts of our hearts that hurt or the parts of our hearts that hide—that is, the dark parts. Either way, it’s a risk. But facing this risk is a prerequisite to being known, and it’s a requirement for being loved. Try it with your spouse today.

As a very little dust will disorder a clock, and the least sand will obscure our sight, so the least grain of sin, which is upon the heart, will hinder its right motion toward God.

—John Wesley