The Ultimate Rorschach

You may have heard of the test where a person looks at inkblots and tells a story of what he sees. That is a very popular psychological test. Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach created the now famous Rorschach Test in 1921. It consists of a psychologist interpreting the responses of a person to 10 bilaterally symmetrical inkblots. Most describe the test as a projective tool in which the participant reveals who he is and what he thinks. If he is depressed and has developed a pessimistic view, he will view the cards and describe his narrative in that frame of mind. If he sees the world from an optimistic viewpoint and has healthy thoughts, he will interpret the cards from that perspective.

I actually believe in an Ultimate Rorschach, which is God’s Word. The Bible has the unique ability of exposing what is inside of our hearts. For example, Proverbs 8:9 says,

All the words of my mouth are just; none of them is crooked or perverse. To the discerning all of them are right; they are faultless to those who have knowledge. God’s Word is reasonable to the reasonable person. How we receive and experience God’s Word reveals who we are.

One of the reasons some people don’t like the Bible is they don’t like what it reveals about their own heart. God never has been timid about telling us the truth about ourselves. James conveys the same idea in his epistle:

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it — he will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:22-25)

It would be incredibly silly for a person to get angry at the mirror for how they look, but that is no different than rejecting God’s Word because of how it reveals our inner nature. James talks about seeing yourself through God’s truth and deciding to do something about it. If we don’t like what we see in the mirror, each of us can do something about it.

I want to encourage you today to allow the Bible to speak to you, and when it gets uncomfortable, don’t run away, just ask God for his help. Paul said this is what God’s Word does for us when we allow it:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work, (2 Tim 3:16-17).