People - we are a weird lot, you know. On almost every topic imaginable you can find people who have diametrically opposing beliefs. And we all believe we are right. We fight for that right, and yell, and scream. We base decisions and actions on those beliefs, we build our world view and then defend it. And when the screaming and yelling and reasoning ends, we go to war for what we believe to be right. It can be small social skirmishes, or the foundations of intercontinental bloodshed.
It is the same within the church. We scrap and fight about the little and the big and can be passionately right about everything from what songs we should sing to versions of holy texts, to the parsing of morality. The world sees it, our inability to get along, our vast ability to stop being kind to those we disagree with, our penchant for attack when we feel our version of "right" is not accepted as wholeheartedly as it should be. And more than one has suggested that the path to future enlightenment lies outside of religion, outside of faith.
You almost can't blame them.
My girls, you are going to find that there is actually quite a lot written out there about being wrong: how to graciously apologize, how to allow those moments to help you grow, how to repair and rebuild the damage done. Less is written about being right, even though that is where we will spend so much more of our time. At least we will believe we are right much more of the time, whether we really are is harder to say.
I've been doing a whole lot of thinking lately about the story of Paul and Barnabas. They were the dynamic duo. Barnabas came into Paul's life when he was a new Christian. Paul was incredibly knowledgeable already, and had an amazing conversion story, but the truth was that he had a lot to overcome. It had to be hard in those early days to overcome fear, the fear of the Christian community that this was a ruse, a way to entrap them and cart them off to prison, or the stoning fields. To overcome grief and distrust and anger for the life Paul held before. But Barnabas was there. A man that trusted easily when God put someone before him. A man of encouragement. A man to reach out and build others, to make bridges for others.
God put Barnabas and Saul together and they did great things. And then John Mark entered the picture. A young man they took with them to help on their missionary journeys. Someone to mentor and build. The details are sketchy, but John Mark left the group and went home. He gave up. We don't know why or any of the reasons surrounding this. But when Paul and Barnabas came back and were preparing for another trip, Barnabas was ready to give John Mark a second chance and take him with again. Paul was not. It sparked a disagreement between the two men. Contentious and sharp and divisive. They left on trips separately.
Arguments are like that. No doubt they both felt they were right. The Biblical account follows Paul and Barnabas the mentor drops out of the picture. But it is John Mark who makes an unexpected mention later down the road. We don't know what happened, but much later Paul, under house arrest in Rome asks that John Mark be sent, because it would be advantageous to have him near. It's as close to an admittance of wrong as we get in the situation. Meaning that if we as outsiders, not knowing the details had to judge right and wrong - well Paul would probably fall on the short side in that initial argument.
And for me, I'd rather be aligned with Barnabas. I'd rather be capable of mercy and second chances. I'd rather be an encourager, a builder. I'd rather be Barnabas than Paul. But here is where the rubber meets the road. Paul may have been dead wrong about John Mark. His choices caused hurt and it destroyed the working relation he had with his team. But God continued to bless his ministry. The truth is that an argument can be made that God blessed both men. While we know less about what happened with Barnabas, we know that his investment in John Mark paid off.
Girls you are going to hear a phrase at some point in your life "I don't think God can bless a ministry that (insert perceived wrong)." Let me tell you right now, that one is a lie. God blesses all types of broken people who have done wrong things and hold wrong ideas. If he waited for us to be right - truly right about all of our views - he'd never be able to work at all.
So here's my advice, and understand that right now I'm writing this to myself as much as to you: Consider that you are going to be standing holding a wrong view at some point in your life. I think that statistically and maybe even experientially you might understand this. And I have an inkling that if God could open our hearts and show us how often we truly are wrong that it might very well crush every last shred of confidence we have.
So when you are wrong, how do you want to be treated?
The answers I come away with are things like, patience, forgiveness, acceptance, kindness - all the things that very right people are so often very bad at doing. Things that people who are hurt by others struggle with too - and you gotta know those "right wars" hurt.
I think, in the in-between spots in the Bible that Barnabas was good at those things. Because somewhere along the line, he stopped focusing on the hurt, stopped focusing on the cause of it, and went forward. He didn't grow angry and tear Paul down for those decisions that caused the rift. Instead he focused on molding a young man for leadership, pouring into the next person God put in his path. And he didn't pour in hurt and contention and betrayal and bitterness into that relationship. Because if he had, Paul would never have been able to ask for John Mark's ministry down the road.
The truth about being right, is that patience, forgiveness, mercy, and kindness may be some of the hardest things in the world to dredge up - especially in those heated, contentious sharp divisions that come our way. Being right (whether real or imagined) can be so much harder than being wrong.
So find people to surround yourselves with who can understand. People that you can say all the bitter angry lashing out things that you want to say, but are too polite, too controlled, or even too afraid to. Find people who can let you vent. But my girls find people who know that after the venting is done it is time to diffuse the fires and calm down. Find the people who will walk with you in righteous indignation, in hurt, in grief, in anger, and in the hard places who can encourage, who can show empathy, but who do not steer you into an unending whirlpool of anger and bitterness. The ones who set you back on shore after the emotion abates.
Look towards the future. And by that, I mean the next person you can help. God will put those people in your life at those places. And if he doesn't bring them to you - you go out looking, 'cause you will find someone to help. When you end up stumbling through war torn fields in the aftermath of a battle, it doesn't matter if your side was the last standing, because the damage has been done. Look for those who are still bleeding out, for those you can heal, for burnt buildings to rebuild, for the John Marks - who are out there.
As you can, try to see the other side, try to humanize them. Try to remember and catalogue the good not the bad. When there is history, focus on the positive portions. Because it is quite easy to make mental lists of deficiencies and hurts, not near so easy to do the other.
Pray for those who you believe to be in the wrong. Give them grace and pray for blessings on their ministry. Because God's blessing is more important than who he works through. And when it comes down to it. Every single one of us is wrong enough to deserve the death penalty. So from that box - we can't anyone of us claim the title of the King (or Queen) of being right.
Apply the golden rule, when you are right, for tomorrow you will be the one who is wrong.
And ask God for the strength that is so difficult to find, so difficult to come by when you are so very right.
