The Responsibility of Seeing

If God has given a person a gift of discernment, and through it, this person quickly recognizes what lies behind another's words, behavior, or defenses—what does it mean, then, to truly love someone?

That is a challenge in itself.

Because on the one hand, you sometimes perceive far more about a person than what they are actually telling you. You see more than they want to reveal—perhaps even more than they themselves can see at that moment.

But if you mention it, you might come up against a blank wall. Not necessarily because you are wrong, but because it might be months or years before that person arrives at a certain realization themselves.

And this is where the next difficulty begins:

You don’t want to be arrogant. You know that your perception is not automatically the truth. You could be wrong. Even spiritual discernment doesn’t make a person infallible.

It becomes difficult, however, when certain perceptions repeat themselves. When you recognize something, bring it up, it gets denied—and yet, sometime later, you end up back at the very same point.

What happens then?

Do you eventually start to trust your own perception too much?

Or does the opposite happen—and you begin to doubt yourself, because what you perceive is not seen or acknowledged by the other person?

What starts as a fundamentally healthy love can very quickly turn into something confusing.

On the one side, pressure builds: A person feels seen, perhaps even “seen through,” before they are ready to look at certain things themselves. They unwillingly feel as if they are beneath you.

On the other side, confusion and doubt arise—in yourself, in your own perception, and eventually in the entire connection and in the other’s heart.

It becomes especially difficult when two people are fundamentally very reflective or intelligent, and at the same time, both bring their own wounds with them. Unfortunately, age doesn’t play a particularly significant role in this.

More knowledge alone doesn't necessarily solve this problem.

You can learn even more about attachment patterns. Even more about trauma. Even more about communication. You can ask coaches and therapists and try to understand the dynamic down to the smallest detail.

And yet, there can still come a point where you realize:

I cannot change another person's heart for them.

Perhaps this is precisely one of the most important lessons of this gift.

If discernment truly comes from God, then the ability to recognize something does not automatically mean that God has also given you the assignment to reveal it, explain it, or change it.

Because you are not the truth.

Jesus is.

And this is what protects against two extremes:

“I see it, therefore it must be true.”

and

"The other person doesn't see it, so my perception must be wrong."

I am allowed to perceive something. I am allowed to examine it. I am allowed to pray about it. I am allowed to speak about it, when it is appropriate. And I am allowed to set boundaries when something hurts again and again.

But I don't have to take on the responsibility for when another person realizes something, or whether they change.

That responsibility belongs to God.

Maybe that’s why love sometimes means voicing something.

Maybe sometimes it means setting a boundary.

Maybe it means praying for someone.

And sometimes love means seeing something without turning it into control. Stepping into trust and being silent—even when silence, at first, feels like it’s holding you back.

Because maybe, in that moment, it’s not just about what God wants to show the other person.

Maybe he wants to show me something, too.

About my impatience. About my desire to be understood. About my urge to resolve something that is not yet mine to resolve.

For me, this also changes the meaning of this gift.

Because if it comes from God, I don't have to struggle to control it myself. I am allowed to give the responsibility for it back to the One it came from.

Spiritual maturity, then, does not show itself in perceiving things about other people ever more quickly and becoming impatient when they cannot recognize as quickly what you yourself already see.

But rather, in learning to discern better and better what to do with what you have perceived—and where you are allowed to take it.