I saw a man sitting on a couch, kind of a heavyset man. He had folds in his clothes, and folds in his skin, and these folds held things from his life. The couch he was sitting on, too, had crevices and places where the remote had fallen, or crumbs had collected, or coins had been lost. Like Joseph interpreting the dream of Pharaoh about the seven healthy cows and seven plump ears of grain and the seven gaunt cows and the seven blighted ears of grain in Genesis 41, I felt that the Lord was making the meaning of this vision plain.
The Greek aphorism "Know Thyself" is a spiritually fallacious one for the Christian, for a man will never arrive at the bottom of his own heart in his lifetime, and it is "the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man" (Mt 15:18). We consider ourselves better than we are. But who can see his own eye but in a mirror? It is the work of grace that reveals our faults to us. "Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults." (Ps 19:12)
Though it is an effort and a work to acquire self-knowledge of our own accord, it is limited. David in the comfort of his springtime, when he should have been at war, falls into sin with Bathsheba. It is Nathan who is sent to him by the Lord to rebuke him when he could not see. The words of the prophet to David, "You are the man!" are not meant to build up but to break down. He was the man who stole the sheep, who put the innocent to death, and who hid the whole ordeal. This was not an occasion for high-fiving, but castigation for the benefit of saving his soul. "Health of body and mind is a great blessing," writes Blessed John Henry Newman, "if we can bear it; but unless chastened by watchings and fastings, it will commonly seduce a man into the notion that he is much better than he really is."
Or think of Saul, who was a 99%er in obedience in his charge to completely destroy the Amalekites, and whom the Lord sent Samuel to to call him out for it with those iconic words, "what then is this bleating of sheep in my ears?" (1 Sam 15:14). Saul was under the presumption that he had fulfilled the commandment of the Lord with regards to the spoils of war. But he deceived himself and brought offense to the house of Israel. Samuel calls him out, the bleating of the sheep the audio indictment of his disobedience.
Do we watch and fast, and ask in humility for our faults to be revealed to us? Are we comfortable in our springtime in rooftop leisure, when we should be at war? Do we have a Nathan in our lives, a spiritual guide or companion who is sent by God to set us straight? We should recognize that we are never free in this life of temptation, never safe from a fall. Again the words of Blessed Newman:
"The warning to be deduced from it is this:—Never to think we have a due knowledge of ourselves till we have been exposed to various kinds of temptations, and tried on every side. Integrity on one side of our character is no voucher for integrity on another. We cannot tell how we should act if brought under temptations different from those which we have hitherto experienced. This thought should keep us humble. We are sinners, but we do not know how great. He alone knows who died for our sins."
There is never a reason to avoid Confession. God's mercy extends to all who humble themselves, and confessing regularly, even (and especially) for venial sins on our conscience, disposes us to the grace of greater self-awareness. The farther we walk on the road, the closer we get to the Savior, the more unworthy we recognize ourselves to be.
When we meet wise and seasoned people on the road, the Nathans and the Samuels, who can see things we can't and in charity point them out to us for the benefit of saving us from perdition, we should thank God for them. For our secret faults will be our downfall if they remain unconfessed, trapped in the folds of our skin and our clothes; for we will have the appearance of being clean and put together before others, but when we get up from our leisure to stand before the Lord, we will see just how slovenly and covered in crumbs the unaware man is.
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