I am acutely aware of expectations, even those that do not exist. I have lived much of my life as a pleaser. To avoid conflict, I have appeased, placated, avoided and feared. And I am increasingly aware of the dangers of living according to the standards and expectations and boundaries of others. “How we used to do it” and “How it’s always been done” are problems. “I’m disappointed in you” can be a deadly constraint, keeping us from doing what we are actually called to do.

Unless I am wrong.

If I am wrong, if I have broken trust with you or with God or both, if I have looked at what Jesus clearly taught and have ignored it, then I need to know. I need to be confronted. I need you to say, “When Jesus was talking about relationship, he said to love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us. And last week, when you were talking about those ____ in ____, that’s about as far from loving your enemies as a person can get, as least as we look at how Jesus demonstrated love.”

Because sometimes we are wrong. Not in some “I misspoke” sense or in some “I was tired” sense or “I made a bad choice” sense, but in an “I sinned” sense. I did evil.

We often want to hit reset. We want to walk away, to ignore the past. And I’m all for do-overs and fresh starts. So is God. That’s the whole point of Jesus and Christmas and Good Friday and Easter. But the way to start over in relationship with ourselves and with God and with others isn’t to just walk away. It’s to walk through a simple, gut-wrenchingly honest process: “I was wrong. I went the wrong way. Please forgive me.”

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Related posts:

The hard work of repenting

I did it