Thinking in Christ — Issue 22: Known by Another

The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it? I, Yahweh, search the mind, I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings. (Jeremiah 17:9-10)

The age has a counsel for the mind that would know itself, and it sounds like wisdom. Set aside time for reflection. Keep a journal. Practice mindfulness. Notice your thoughts without judgment. Study your biases. Seek feedback. Think about your thinking. Consider other perspectives. Apply what you learn. On this telling, self-awareness is a skill the self builds in the self, by the self, until the self finally sees itself clearly.

Therefore this issue must refuse that counsel at its root. The self cannot be both the witness and the judge of the self. A deceitful heart cannot certify its own honesty. The instrument is the very thing under examination, and it has already shown its hand: it deceives. Self-awareness that begins and ends in the self is not awareness. It is the deceiver interviewing itself and reporting that it finds itself trustworthy.

Consider first the question that closes the anchor. Who can know it? The question is not an invitation to try harder. It is a verdict on every method that makes the knower the known and the judge the judged. The heart is deceitful above all things. That phrase leaves no exception for the careful journaler, the mindful observer, or the sincere reflector. Above all things means above the very tools the age offers for self-knowledge. The journal records what the deceitful heart chose to write. The mindful gaze watches what the deceitful heart chose to show. The feedback is weighed by the deceitful heart that decides which criticism to accept and which to dismiss as misunderstanding. The method changes. The judge does not. And the judge is compromised.

Because of this, the answer to the question comes from outside the self, and it comes as a name. I, Yahweh, search the mind. I try the heart. The searching is God's work, not the self's achievement. He does not wait for the heart to present itself accurately. He searches it. He does not accept the heart's account of itself. He tries it. And He gives according to ways and fruit, not according to self-assessment. This is why no mind is neutral (Romans 12:2). The mind under examination is either being renewed by the Word or conformed to a pattern apart from God, and the examination itself serves whichever master already owns the mind. A mind conformed to the world will use reflection to flatter itself. A mind renewed by the Word will use reflection to hear a verdict it did not write.

Yet this does not abolish reflection, and it does not make the believer blind to himself. It relocates reflection. True self-knowledge begins not with the command to know yourself, but with the prayer to be known. Search me, God, and know my heart. Try me, and know my thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way. (Psalm 139:23-24) Notice the order. The psalmist does not search himself and then report the findings to God. He asks God to search him. He does not try his own thoughts and then invite God to confirm the result. He asks God to try him and know his thoughts. The prayer assumes what the age denies: that the one praying does not yet know what the search will find. That is why it is a prayer and not a technique. A prayer surrenders the outcome to the Searcher.

For this reason, the Word, not the self, is the instrument that discerns. For the word of God is living, and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12) The Word does what journaling cannot do. It divides what the self has fused together: soul from spirit, motive from excuse, thought from intent. The self cannot divide itself this way, because the self benefits from the confusion. The Word pierces where the self only observes, and it discerns before the self has finished composing its account. The believer does not first understand himself and then submit that understanding to the Word. He stands under the Word and is understood by it.

This is the same truth Paul states about his own conscience. He does not judge his own self, and though he knows nothing against himself, he is not justified by this, for he who judges him is the Lord (1 Corinthians 4:3-4). Mark how far this goes. Even a clear conscience does not acquit. Even the absence of self-accusation is not a verdict. The apostle will not take his own inner silence as evidence of innocence, because he knows the court is not inside him. The judge is the Lord. The self-aware man in Scripture is therefore not the man who has finally heard himself clearly. He is the man who has stopped treating his own hearing as the trial.

Consider, then, what happens to the age's strategies when they are placed under this rule rather than above it. Reflection is not evil, but reflection under the Word is confession, not self-certification. It measures the thought against God's Word, rather than measuring the Word against the thought. Journaling is not evil, but a journal under the Word is a record brought to the Searcher, not a court transcript the self files in its own favor. Feedback is not evil, but feedback under the Word is heard as a possible instrument of the Searcher, not as a vote the self tallies toward its own approval. Considering other perspectives is not evil. But no perspective, including one's own, is neutral (2 Corinthians 10:5). Every thought must be taken captive to obey Christ, including the thought that one has thought well about one's thoughts.

At the same time, self-examination in Scripture is real, and it has a fixed direction. The believer is told to examine himself to see whether he is in the faith (2 Corinthians 13:5). But the test is not whether his self-examination feels thorough. The test is whether Jesus Christ is in him. The examination points outward to a Person, not inward to a performance. The man who examines himself by his own sincerity will always find a sincerity he manufactured. The man who examines himself by Christ finds a verdict he did not author: either Christ is in him, or the examination has exposed that he is not yet in the place he claimed. Self-awareness, rightly ordered, ends not in the self but in Christ.

Evidence, too, finds its place under this rule. A pattern of self-deception, once exposed by the Word, may corroborate what God has said about the heart. But evidence never founds faith. God's testimony about His Son stands first (1 John 5:9-10). The believer does not conclude that the heart is deceitful because his journal proved it, nor that he is safe because his reflection feels peaceful. He knows the heart is deceitful because God has said so, and he reads his journal, his feelings, and his feedback in that light. A mind founded on its own self-knowledge will fall with the next self-deception. A mind founded on being known by God will stand in the exposure, because the foundation is not the self's sight. The foundation is God's search.

So let the final word reverse the age's counsel. Do not seek to know yourself and hope God agrees with the portrait. Ask to be known by the One who searches the mind and tries the heart. Stand under the living Word that divides soul and spirit and discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart. Do not treat a clear conscience as an acquittal. Wait for the Lord, who judges.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: who can know it? I, Yahweh, search the mind, I try the heart. (Jeremiah 17:9-10) The Searcher has come. And the mind that is truly self-aware is not the mind that has finally mastered itself. It is the mind that has been searched, tried, and led in the everlasting way by the God who knows it better than it knows itself.