Unshackled Moments ~ Febraury 29 ~ I Made A Mistake

It takes me a while to get going in the mornings, especially here lately. I haven't been resting well at night, so the morning is feels rough. Add to my bain doing the slow to rise thing the fact that as bad as my vision has become overall, it's worse in the mornings and you have the recipe for the mistake I made yesterday. Yesterday morning I had nothing, no whisper from the Holy Spirit or any other inspiration, no ideas about what to write for the day's Unshackled Moment. I lay in bed praying, hoping for inspiriation and a good start to the day. I got a text as a lay there, and when I glanced at it, well, let's just say that I hadn't made it our of bed yet, although I had been awake for quite a while, and I not only made my first mistake of the day, but it was a domino doozey.

I took the opportunity and the inspiration I received when I read the text to brag on both my little brothers in yesterday's UM Deflating The Pretty Pride Balloon. I stand by the lmessafe overall. I am sure that I embarrassed my brother Jon, bragging on him as I did, especially since it turns out that he didnt' send the text I credited to him. Mom did/ She was the one who rejoiced by gifting and serving me (us) by purchasing papers with the article about U.S. Army Captain Jeremy Woodard on the front page. So there is a ministry moment out there giving praise to Jon for doing something he didn't do. I felt grateful that he didn't just comment on the post and make me look foolish as I felt when I found out. It's easier to eat crow when you hold the fork yourself.

But that said, I don't really feel like I'm eating crow. I made a mistake. But then again, I didn't. The reason why I so easily misread the text identification (a single letter in group messages to show who said what - that's one time I don't care for my message app) and believed Jon had done what I had attributed to him is that it is completely in his nature and history to do such things and act in that way. He may not have purchased a paper for Mom yesterday and sent her a text saying so, but he has so lived and exemplified that honor, love and service that it would've been no surprise if he had. Everything that I said about him was right and true and although some of the details of the story were wrong, the rest was not. Well just call it a parable and move on.

So no, I'm not eating crow. But I did once more get a clear vision of how easy it is, even when trying to do the right thing and with good motivation and intentions, to make a mistake that leads to another mistake that leads to, well the chain of dominoes can pretty long and make a lot of noise as they topple one another. I misread a message. I ran with the inspiration I got and used revelation based on a mistake to illustrate a ministry message. The revelation came from tuth. The lesson was a good one, but the illustration was untrue, or at least incorrect. That mistake may have caused my brother to feel embarrassed or uncomfortable or frustrated that I "lied" about him. No, I wasn't lyingt about him, but intentionally or not my illustration was untrue. That ouuld give the appearence of a minister who plays fast and loose with the truth in order to manipulate things to fit what he wants to say, and since rigourous honesty is important to me, I hate that idea.

All truth be told, this mistake wasn't that big of a deal I felt a little foolish, but I can still stand by the message. My mother didn't get hurt by my crediting her generosity to another. And I can easily and just as publicly adit my mistake and set the record straight. I got a glimpse of truth about the nature of progress and the danger of getting comfortable and the need to press on toward the goal. What I said was true, and if you take the story from yesterday morning as a parable rather than autobiography, we're good to go. My motivation was to share the light of the truth and my experience, strength and hope to help others and not to puff myself up. I had not wish to deceive. There was nothing wron in the message or motive, and yet mistakes led to other mistakes which led to other mistakes.

Rareley does a mistake stand alone in solitude, except maybe on a test in school. We don't have to be way off the deep end and so outside the will of God that we can't see it anymore to mess up. Our motivation doesn't have to bad. We don't have to have slipped back into selfishness and self will to miss the mark. And sometimes those mistakes that we aren't far off on are harder to see. It's like working a math problem all wrong and somehow on accidnt geting the correct answer at the end. We want to say what's the big deal? The answer is correct. The message is good, motivation checks, no harm no foul. But the truth is that if we lkeep working those types of math problems the same incorrect way, we'l start getting the answers wrong and we will not have learned how to do them corretly. This is one reason why it's so important to do a spot check inventory from time to time throughout our day. We stop and give our Teacher the Holy Spirit the opportunity to show us where we're making mistakes that we can't see.

We can catch the big ones. I know that when anger erupts in my heart like a volcano and I want to scream and curse for an hour and throw a puppy that doesn't know any better across the room into a wall for peeing on my sandal that I am not where I am supposed to be spiritually at that moment. It's easy to see that I've gotten off the mark. But when things aren't as blatant we need revelation and understanding to see the problem and how to get back on track, because even when we're at out best and with all good intentions, when we take our inspiration or impulse and rush ahead of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we get it wrong. The reason Jesus said that there is none good besides God is because we just can't do it perfectly, and therefore even our good is going to be messy. Let us be quick to allow the Spirit to show us where we are working the problems wrong, even if it seems we're getting the answers right, and agree that working the problems His way is the only right way, even when the answers come out the same. The next time, should we continue to work the problem the same way, may not be as close to correct and the mistake could be harder to clean up and do more damage. Don't get ahead of God. I'm sure He could have helped me illuminate the same message He gave me with a different illustratuion had I waited on Him.

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