OOPS!

Some years ago a new Interstate loop was added to the highway system where I lived.  The first time I drove on it, I saw a sign beside the highway that said, "This Lane Does Not Exist."

"What?"  What do they mean, "This Lane Does Not Exist"?  It does exist.  I am driving in it.

Each time I drove that highway, I had an argument with the sign makers.  I kept telling myself and which ever ghost was riding with me in the car at the time, "I know the lane exists. I am driving in it.  I just don't understand."

One day, after the highway had been opened for a couple of years, I drove the route and the sign said, "This Lane Does Not Exit."  Really, that is what it said.  The lane does not exit.  "When did they change the sign?"   

Well, I doubt that they changed the sign. I think I changed my glasses.  Somehow my first impression, which was wrong, got stuck in my mind. I looked hard at the sign every time I passed it and never saw the absence of the "S". I was so convinced that it said, "This Lane Does Not Exist" that I couldn't see what it really said.

I wonder how many other wrong perceptions I get stuck on? I wonder how many first impressions I have that do not really represent reality? 

I don't know, but I have been thinking about it lately. I guess sometimes it is important to "unlearn" what we "know" so we can discover what is real.

MISTAKES

I make mistakes.  I made one several years ago that I regret. I invested some money in a company. It was an upstart company with a really good idea.  I invested time trying to make the company work. I offered creative ideas for the product. I tried to network to help find potential partners.

But, the good idea died.  Not for lack of wisdom but for lack of execution. 

When I think about that experience, I know that I didn’t intend to make a mistake. I considered all the issues I could think of and decided that this was a good use of my resources of time and money. I wanted to make a good decision and I believed that I had.

The problem was, it didn’t turn out well. Factors beyond my control had more influence than I thought they would. The decision to publish a product just as the digital world was emerging to forever change the world of information sharing turned out to not be a good decision.

Most people I know don’t make mistakes intentionally.  Most people I know try to take into account the multiple factors that are at play in any situation and then decide to do what they think is best. Most of the time the decisions are not clear cut. Many times the choices aren’t between good and bad, but between better and worse or between good and good.

So, as I reflect on my mistake on my investment, I discover grace inside myself for myself. I would like to undo some things and re-do some things.  I cannot.  But, I know that I tried to not make the mistake that the decision turned out to be.

And if I can find grace for myself, maybe I can have grace for others who made mistakes. At least I can consider that they didn’t intentionally decide to do something that didn’t work out as well as they had hoped.

HEALING SPACE

[This post is the fifth in a series of devotions on forgiveness that I first published last year in a leaders’ devotional book, "Disciplines 2013" from The Upper Room. This is based on a reading found in II Corinthians 5:16-17]

Parables invite imagination.  We don’t know what happened to the prodigal’s family when they were working life out together after the party.  If their life was anything like ours we know that there was probably much trial and error, effort and failure, miscues and mistakes, tears and struggles. When life confronts us with situations that are without precedence, we must make up what happens next.  We don’t always know the best thing to do.  We don’t know the outcome of actions till we try them.

Living this way can be scary because we will make mistakes.  These are not intentional but are simply the result of life lived by experimentation and discovery. We will make choices that work out well and some that will create more pain and confusion.  Patient testing of direction and action are required to recreate life after the scattering and breaking of alienation.

Paul shares with us insights as to how God creates a healing space for experiment gone awry--a way to keep us from becoming the mistakes that we make.  He talks of a God who does see us from a human point of view.  God in Christ is in the business of innovation--of making a new creation.  God so desires that we join in that creative process that the Divine self is given to overcome our mistakes and our separation. 

This forgiveness releases the innovative energy that we humans can share and thus break down the walls that divide from God and each other.  We too can take the initiative, not seeing others as humans do, locking each other into our mistakes, but as God does, as humans who make mistakes.  This frees us all to join God’s journey of new creation.  Can you develop the divine eyesight and join in that journey?

Holy Initiator, be patient with us as we make our way to your will.