Get Used To Being Wrong

“For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:” (Pr 6:23 AV)

I reference this verse quite a lot.  It is sprinkled throughout my sermons on a regular basis.  This verse is a reminder that life is one big lesson.  Reproofs are the most subtle of all forms of correction. A reproof is merely pointing out that someone is wrong based solely on the facts of what is right.  There is no moral judgment here.  Simply, if you think a green light means stop and a red light means go, then you are wrong.  No judgment one why you think that.  It is just wrong.  The fact a human being can learn by necessity means he or she will learn what they thought they knew was not right.  Learning is adding to that which we already know and correcting that which we thought we knew.  It is the way of life.  It cannot be avoided.  When we take in information, we are examining what we just experienced in the light of the information we already possess.  Then we add to or correct that, which we possessed prior to the experience.  Again, this is the way of life.  It is the only way of life.  There is no other choice but to be corrected and the sooner we are humbled into accepting this reality, the quicker we can learn to enjoy life.  The more we fight against it, the more we will reap the consequences of being wrong.

For the most part, school was fun.  I am a student at heart.  Watching programming usually bores me unless there is something to learn.  If the plot is predictable, I am not interested.  Movies are not my thing unless there is something I can learn.  Reading is a passion of mine.  The more the better.  As a student, there was one particular practice I loathed.  Spelling was never my forte.  I was not the top of my class when it came to knowing what letters made up a word.  To my defense, we were the generation of experimentation.  We didn’t learn the rules of phonics.  We were taught the ‘sound-it-out’ method of spelling.  All in an attempt to rethink education.  Our spelling tests were weekly.  On Monday, the teacher would give us twenty words to memorize.  On Friday, we would take a test.  Then one a month or so, those lists were combined and the teacher would pick a random number of words for a monthly or quarterly test.  The test was bad enough.  After the test, the teacher had us swap papers for grading.  That is what I loathed.  It was bad enough the teacher knew how bad of a speller I was.  Not someone else knew.  Then the coup de grace came when she asked us to call out our grade when our names were spoken.  The entire class knew how horrible of a speller I was.  Reproof all around!  But, that was the way of life.  No sense in crying about it.  ‘Work harder’ was the idea.

No one likes to be wrong.  Some can’t stand it more than others.  It hurts our pride.  We become way too attached to our opinions or what we think we know.  If someone calls us out on it, we are embarrassed and take it personally.  Especially if it is someone we deem less intelligent or experienced than ourselves.  The thing is, God loves us.  And because He does, He cannot allow us to live a life of falsehood and error that would only result in consequences too hard to live under.  He wants us to be free from falsehood so we can enjoy the life He intended for us all along.  But that requires correction.  That requires adjustments.  That requires an examination that may reveal things we would rather not face.  One of the most precious commodity that the saint can bring to the table is a teachable heart.  It is something a parent or pastor values far more than one realizes.  A teachable heart is a treasure.  It is finer than gold.  Whether we want to accept it or not, reproof will be there.  We cannot avoid it.  The laws which the LORD has placed as part of His creation are not going to bend just because we don’t like the truth we are about to learn.  God is not going to quit teaching us.  So, it would go a long way towards the blessings of life if we were to simply accept the reality that reproofs are the way of life and there is no avoiding it.