So Right and Still So Wrong

Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a conversation and suddenly feel ambushed?  Like somehow you were being roped into something completely different than what you thought?   There you are, blissfully ignorant of any underlying currents, or ulterior motives and boom –ambushed by extrapolation.    

“So, you hate dogs.”

“No. I didn’t say that.”

“What’s wrong with you?  Dogs are man’s best friend. You must have trouble relating to men. Does your husband know you are a man hater?”

“What?!  How’d you get that out of if I could have a pet, I would choose a cat?”

Obviously I’ve fabricated the above ‘conversation’, but I’ve experienced conversations that incorporated the same type of illogical ‘logic’.

I am a person who believes that the cross of Christ changed the course of history, and that His sacrificial gift was sufficient to redeem mankind from the authority of the law of sin and death.  I am also a person who doesn’t know exactly what all that means, but am thrilled to explore the possibilities, of which I am confident can never be exhausted.

Why was Jesus so revolutionary in His approach to life?  Because He always looked beneath the surface and into the heart of the matter which made folks squirm under such scrutiny.  Rock throwers were forced to face their failures. Finger pointers were invited examine the fault-lines and frailties in their arguments.  Fun?  No.  Necessary?  Absolutely!

Taking my cues from Christ, I believe every situation deserves its own examination, and to throw canned answers at complicated questions is a disservice to humanity.  Are canned answers easy?  Yes.  Do they seem ‘right’?  Yes.  Are they effective?  No.

So when I find myself in the uncomfortable place where someone is demanding I make a judgment to bolster their position, the best outcome is realized by refusing to be pulled into faulty reasoning. 

“Tell that person how wrong they are!”

“I’m a failure.” 

“They sinned against the laws of God!”

“Why does God hate me?”

“I am experiencing this because…”

“If you don’t side with me and my righteous assessment of the situation then you are blind, ignorant, and a blasphemous heretic.”

And sometimes their arguments seem right.

But being completely right usually comes at the price of being completely wrong.

Wading around in the cesspool of self-righteousness is a low-level existence.  We, as Christ Followers have been redeemed from the cesspool existence by and through a higher law.  The law of mercy and grace.  Mercy, compassion, grace, and forgiveness are higher laws.

James says it this way:  mercy triumphs over judgment.  Again, I don’t know what that looks like in every circumstance and situation, but I know it’s been extended to me and I endeavor to represent the higher Laws of the Kingdom to those I am in contact with.  It’s the way I imagine the Kingdom of God can be advanced in the earth.  I might be completely wrong.  But then again, I might be completely right. If I am wrong, my hope is to have erred on the side of mercy.