The Art of Being Wrong

There comes a time when we must learn to be wrong. Actually, this opportunity comes quite so many times in our lives.

I'm not referring to admitting when we are wrong. This is a separate discussion, and a separate art that many of us also struggle with. [By the way, please, reader, work on this area of your heart too. Just admit when you are wrong to yourself and to God and those you have affected, and then say the second most powerful three words in the universe: I Am Sorry.]

But, learning to be wrong is something completely different.

This situation occurs when you might actually be right, or when no one in the situation may be wrong, but just different. It takes a unique level of surrender of pride to see this. And to allow oneself the be selfless enough with the things we hold onto so much...the habits, reactions, emotions, expectations...oh, dear reader, this will not be easy by any means.

In fact, it will take a touch from the Heavenly Father Himself, I'm sure of it. It did for me, at least.

I have held onto shades and remnants of perfectionistic demands in fellowship with others, and while these things were based in the values of excellence and biblical principles, I discovered that I had a couple key things well out of place.

Primarily, I was operating on a one-legged walk. I was holding to these good principles of relationship and communication, but nowhere was the companion step of grace.

Right-doing is good, and it is in fact right. But this alone never accounts for humanity, frailty, failure, and handling that failure well. It is simply a standard of excellence to strive towards, live by, and many times fail at. Grace is a most vital comrade to right-doing, as I have now coined this. If we have not grace, we get stuck in the mud of our own self-righteousness, at which we fail miserably our own selves.

Furthermore, we fail to understand that while the law of right-doing is strong and good, the law of grace is actually a higher law, more powerful, able to catch and cradle the power of the incompletion and incapabilities of right-doing alone.

Now we don't go from one extreme to the other, and abuse the purpose of grace by forsaking the attempt of right-doing. There is a balance, as with everything in life.

We simply need both.

So, for myself, this has been a lesson I have learned in different ways over the years, but perhaps most profoundly very recently. I cannot risk losing what God has placed in my hands simply because I want to wallow in self pity or hurt feelings, because someone does not do things exactly the way I think they should be done.

What if I am actually wrong, or too bent out of shape over certain things? What if I am the one who is actually way out of bounds? Maybe I will be able to see a whole different world in relating and communicating if I can lay down my selfish pride and expectation enough to simply love with more unconditionality.

Oh...but this certainly wasn't easy. It took several trips to the place of heart-wrenching calling out to God and laying on the altar and declaring my heart and ways surrendered to God.

But when Jesus stepped in, that one night very recently, and touched my heart with the grace-filled love that He loves me with, and reminded me the definition and experience of true love, I became capable of loving without the condition of perfection from the other person or people. I became capable of relinquishing my stiff demands of particular responses and behaviors in certain situations.

I became capable of being wrong.

I was wrong. I am wrong. And now...made right, by grace.
Oh, thank You Jesus for that touch. I will never be the same.