In this election season, where both sides are constantly looking for blame to assign and blame to avoid (and yes, the other side is always worse at it,) I love to hear a politician say, “I was wrong.” Â And we don’t hear it enough.
Well I need to say it now. Â If you have been following , you will know that I have been going round and round with our plumber about something that was broken when something else was being fixed. Â I have taken great pains to represent everything honestly, even the aspects of the situation that have not supported my stance.
Where I thought I had landed was on the idea that our plumber did good work, but was IMHO overly expensive. Â I shared that with him and with the facebook world; or at least my tiny part of it. Â I never shared any of it at any point angrily or in a jaded way, but it did frustrate me quite a bit. Then, as Tracy shared her opinion, which was different from mine (not the first time for that) I have started to realize that I was probably wrong.
Nope, I was wrong.
10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.  2 Cor 12.10
Now this section has Paul talking about the legitimate difficulties he had faced, and nothing that I am going through (plumbing or otherwise) rises to that level of difficulty, so I don’t quote this verse for that reason. Â I quote it because I believe God has shown me that for this next season of my life, to be stronger I need to focus on being weaker.
One of the ways I do this is my just being honest about when I am wrong. Â I have done this for years, imperfectly to be sure, but it has been a central concern of mine. Â And I also have believed and have tried to live the truth “the way you wrong someone should correspond to the way you should make it right.” Â So, I shared what I have come to see was a wrong thought via Facebook, so I will correct it via Facebook as well.
I now don’t think the plumber overcharged me, I believe he handled the issue we presented to him fairly and very competently. Â My sense that he was overcharging me was based on an understanding of the problem that I now see was likely false. Â So I was wrong.
Please know, this isn’t self-punishment, and I don’t feel guilty about what I did. Â I was just wrong and needed to fix that.
Hopefully, the saga is now over.
Except for fixing the ceiling…. Stay tuned. Â Drywall work should bring out some things I’ll be needing to apologize for 🙂
Peace, Jim
