We’ve Lost Our Ability to See Beauty
A book that I started back in the summer that I just picked up again yesterday is “Making Ideas Happen” by Scott Belsky. Great book by the way. One of the chapters I was reading about this morning was on leadership, and in particular, feedback. Belsky shares about a story-telling workshop that he went to, led by Jay O’Callahan. During the workshop, everyone stands up and tells a story, and then afterward is a feedback session. But the participants only comment on what they liked about the story. No negative/”constructive” feedback is given. O’Callahan reasons that appreciation-based feedback that only focuses on the strengths, allows a person to further enhance their strengths, and a byproduct of focusing on that is that the weaknesses also diminish.
It’s a very interesting idea that is contrary to what is popular belief in business today. Everyone wants to know what they can do better - what needs to change. O’Callahan (and Belsky) focuses instead on what you are already doing well. They are two very different approaches, but there was an insight that I found that really caught my attention this morning that I will share. Here’s a direct quote from the book:
“O’Callahan went on to suggest that ‘if our eyes are always looking for weakness, we begin to lose the intuition to notice the beauty.’”
We have grown up in a culture that has taught us to look FOR weakness instead of strength - fault instead of beauty. And O’Callahan says that the problem with this is that we lose our ability to notice the beauty.
I found this very insightful and intriguing. When in school, as a teacher is grading a paper - they put marks next to the ones that are wrong, not the ones that are right. When we get evaluations at work, often they focus on where we need improvement, not what we’ve done well. The commercial media tells us what we’re lacking (and thus what we “need” to be happy). As I considered all of this, my mind wandered to Christians, who constantly obsess about their weaknesses, and his words took on new depth.
As Christians, we are so focused on sin and how less than perfect we are - we have lost the ability to see the beauty in our lives. We miss all the grace and blessings God gives us daily because we believe we aren’t deserving of such things, so we don’t see them. People who get divorced or who struggle with addiction feel like they have to leave the church and they’re ashamed - that’s us focusing on weakness. We should welcome them in and love on them and then we’d see the beauty of grace and transformation that is possible in their lives. We focus on how terrible we are at keeping up with a daily devotion and prayer time and we are shamed and guilted away from any meaningful and regular relationship with God because we don’t think we’re doing it “right.” Instead, if we stopped focusing on the weaknesses we have, and embraced the idea that no matter what, He ALWAYS loves us and ALWAYS cherishes every moment we give Him, and He ALWAYS looks to bless us - we would have an amazing, liberating life - the one Jesus told us we would have. But we’re too focused on weakness to see the beauty…
Jesus said in John 11:40, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” Our problem is a belief problem. We don’t believe that despite our weaknesses God loves us as much as He ever has. We don’t believe that in spite of the injustices we commit daily to our fellow man, God still wants to bless us. We don’t believe that our forgiveness was once and forever completed on the cross, and thus we focus on our weaknesses. Seeing isn’t always believing, but believing leads us to new sight.
Matthew 13:16 “But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.”
Lord, help us to better see You all around us, and then the weaknesses will fade. Amen.
