Christian introspection can feel a little like walking into a broad and intricate maze. Entering the maze is easy enough, but so is getting lost within it. Your sense of direction slips. Promising paths of thought take unexpected and distressing turns. Dead ends abound.

If we want to live safely in this world, then we will need at least some of the self-knowledge that comes from introspection (we might also call it self-examination). “Pay attention to yourselves,” our Lord Jesus told his disciples (Luke 17:3). “Keep a close watch on yourself,” Paul wrote to Timothy (1 Timothy 4:16). “Keep your heart with all vigilance,” the wise man counsels (Proverbs 4:23). So we enter the maze of self for good reason.

Yet anyone who has seriously embarked upon this path of self-knowledge knows how many holes and pits, how many crossroads and mistaken turns, how many briars and thorns line the way. And some Christians, inward and scrupulous by nature, know what it’s like to get lost in that maze for long stretches of time.

Our Lord calls us to look within. Yet alongside healthy introspection are a dozen dangers and dead ends — paths that will yield not more self-knowledge but rather more anxiety, insecurity, distraction, and fear. As we consider the maze before us, then, we would do well to remember some common ways introspection goes wrong.

Dead End 1: Endless Introspection

For some Christians, introspection is less a spiritual practice and more a spiritual atmosphere. They don’t so much visit the maze as live there. These believers often live with split attention — one part of them talking, working, resting, worshiping, the other part standing back and assessing their talking, working, resting, worshiping.

We might find ourselves engaging in endless introspection for several reasons. Maybe we imagine that we really can know ourselves comprehensively if we just look long enough. So, we assess and reassess, guess and second-guess, analyze and scrutinize as if just a little more looking might unmask our inner selves. We may leave little room for Paul’s modest self-awareness (1 Corinthians 4:3–4) or prayers like David’s in Psalm 19:12: “Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults.”

“‘Love God’ and ‘love neighbor’ are our most crucial callings — and continual self-scrutiny undermines both.”

Probably more often, endless introspection is less intentional. We don’t decide to analyze ourselves so much; we just reflexively find ourselves doing so. The power of this vague, atmospheric self-analysis lies partly in the fact that it can feel productive and obedient. Jesus tells us to watch ourselves; we’re watching. Or so we think. But as with a preoccupied father who feels productive while mentally solving work problems at the dinner table, endless introspection usually distracts us from plainer, more important obedience.

God may command us to look within, but these commands hold a small place among the whole, just a sliver of the pie chart. Far more often, God commands us to look upward and outward — to Christ (Hebrews 12:2), to heaven (Colossians 3:1–4), to the people beside us and the wonders around us and the gifts before us (Matthew 6:26; Philippians 2:3; 4:8). “Love God” and “love neighbor” are our most crucial callings — and continual self-scrutiny undermines both.

So, instead of stumbling around in a maze of thoughts, introspect with intention. Aim to enter this maze with a prayer and a plan, with a clear beginning and end. And even if intrusive thoughts keep tempting you inward, dare to remember that the obedience God expects of you usually lies outward.

Dead End 2: One-Eyed Introspection

Self-examination sometimes gets construed as simply a sin search or idol hunt: we look within to trace our guilt to its buried roots. Granted, Scripture’s calls to introspection often do focus on finding the troublesome parts about ourselves — “any grievous way in me,” as David says (Psalm 139:24). We want to meet our enemies in their infancy so they don’t grow up to slay us. But if we search for only sin within, then we are like a man who keeps one eye closed.

“We must have two eyes,” Richard Sibbes writes, “one to see imperfections in ourselves, the other to see what is good” (The Bruised Reed, 35). And if Jesus is your Lord, Savior, and Treasure, then no matter how embattled you feel, you have something good to see. Your soul may have weeds, but it also has fruit planted and growing by the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:22–23).

The apostle John writes, “By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3). We can know that we are in Christ, John says. And one of the ways we know is by noticing the grace he has given us to obey him — to delight in his word, love his people, rely on his strength, trust his promises. We are not who we once were, and God wants us to know it.

Confession and repentance are marks of Christian maturity, but endless self-accusation is not. As Octavius Winslow writes,

It is not true humility to doubt, and underrate, until it becomes easy to deny altogether the work of the Holy Ghost within us — it is true humility and lowliness to confess his work, bear testimony to his operation, and ascribe to him all the power, praise, and glory. (Personal Declension, 151)

Do not pinch your nose as you walk past the fruit of the Spirit in your life. Do not speak of your soul as if the good work God has begun is actually a bad work, one without progress or beauty (Philippians 1:6). Rather, open both your eyes when you look within, and praise him for whatever good you find.

Dead End 3: Untethered Introspection

In John Calvin’s discussion of the knowledge of God, he uses a vivid image that we might also apply to the knowledge of self. “The divine countenance,” he writes, “is for us like an inexplicable labyrinth unless we are conducted into it by the thread of the Word” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.6.3).

Those who try to know God apart from Scripture are like men dropped in the middle of an infinite maze. Our own souls, while not as unsearchable as God’s nature, are likewise “inexplicable” to us apart from God’s word. We need a thread to lead us through the labyrinth of self to the places we need to see (and then to guide us back out).

David models this approach to self-knowledge in Psalm 19. Even as he acknowledges the persistent hiddenness of some sins (Psalm 19:12), he celebrates the searching and illuminating character of God’s word. “The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. . . . Moreover, by [it] is your servant warned” (Psalm 19:8, 11). God’s word is a sun upon the soul — warming us, warning us, revealing us, and leading us back to our rock and redeemer (Psalm 19:14).

Imagine, then, that a particular sin has been pestering you. You want to see it more clearly so you can confess it more sincerely and kill it more effectively. You might simply pray and think about why this sin holds such power over you — and that could be fruitful. You might also bring this sin before another believer — and that could be even more fruitful. But you might also consider how to hold more tightly to “the thread of the word.”

“Understanding ourselves holds almost no value if we remain preoccupied with ourselves.”

If you want to see your envy more clearly, you might hold onto the story of Saul’s jealousy (1 Samuel 8:6–16) or James’s words about “the wisdom from above” (James 3:13–18). If you want to understand and address some recurring fear more decisively, you might get into the boat with the disciples (Mark 4:35–41) or allow Paul to lovingly question you at the end of Romans 8 (verses 31–39). If you want to turn from shallow entertainment and earthly-mindedness, you might let John lead you into his vision of the new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:4).

As we linger in passages like these — pondering, meditating, and allowing them to search our souls — we may find them leading us to motives we never imagined, temptations we never named, and ways of escape we never saw.

Dead End 4: Christless Introspection

In the end, self-examination, like all means of God’s grace, is just that: a means. Understanding ourselves holds almost no value if we remain preoccupied with ourselves. But if we allow what we see of ourselves to lead us somewhere else, to preoccupy us with Christ, then introspection will become one more servant of our joy in him.

We do not pore over our souls simply to see our illnesses, but so we might show the Great Physician where we need him to lay his healing hands and bestow his benediction of peace. And what a physician he is! Throngs came to him on earth, their needs as varied as their humanity, yet “he healed them all” (Matthew 12:15). And so he still does by his Spirit from heaven.

If bitterness consumes you like leprosy, he can cleanse you and send you home whole. If laziness or self-indulgence has paralyzed your love, he can raise you up again. If twisted words have made your praises go mute, he can unloose and retrain your tongue. If lofty thoughts of self have blinded you to his worth, he can once again say to your eyes, “Be opened.”

Whatever we discover within is already known by him. We may find ourselves surprised; he is not. And in this Jesus — his person, his work — is all the healing we could ever need. So, look within, but don’t live there. Let every inward look lead you to the Lord outside yourself. Live in him.