Oh No! I'm Getting Things Wrong Again!

I've had a couple of conversations with Christian people lately.  And what they'd told me is that I'm messing up.  I'm perhaps hamfisted, unsubtle, and bull-in-china-shop, with little evidence of doing sufficient good to warrant the hurt caused. I'm definitely narrow in my focus, and needing a perspective and attitude adjustment.

     And when this has been shared, I've found myself filling with doubt.  A coldness rushing over me, shame closing over my head and panic.  I was letting myself be assessed by other human beings, who don't really see as much good in what I'm doing as maybe I do.  I'm assuming they know better, because they have an outside perspective on me, which I can never have. I'm caring more what they think than what God might be doing.

     And what happened when I got more of that this evening, was at first I got grim and cold and closed, but then I realized that I do not serve people.  And yes, they're right of course.  I'm getting things wrong.  I'm not doing as well as I sometimes might hope or think I am.

     And I thought of kids who are afraid to write on the blackboard/whiteboard, for fear of spelling something wrong, or of having messy writing.  Of kids who are afraid to speak up, for fear of saying something wrong.  And I remembered how I would always rather some kid write or speak something wrong, than the kids not speak or write anything at all.

     I am not a father, so I don't get that little glimpse into what being God might be sort of like.  All I've got is that I'm a teacher.  And I used that.  I realized that I get to get things wrong.  And I felt the warmth and the ease and looseness pour back in.  I relaxed and opened up.  Things could get in and out again.
     It's not like it's wonderful to get things wrong, but it's inevitable, and God plans for it and works with it.  Delights to, actually. And doing nothing, while being filled with fear and shame are far worse mistakes than doing something and getting it a bit wrong, then retooling it and reworking it and rethinking stuff and making eventual progress.

    Ironically, it takes an odd laying aside of pride and dignity to be willing to put it out there and get stuff wrong.  doesn't matter if you're about to sing a song, do a dance, skate, give a pie, release a book, read a poem or whatever.  And you have to be ready for people to then think you're arrogant and audacious for putting anything out there to begin with.

     Hello.  I'm going to keep saying and doing things.  And I'm going to be getting stuff wrong.  Maybe a lot.  We're all going to have to learn to live with that.  I will listen.  But I will not stop.