We mess up. No earth shattering news, no surprises, no shocks. It’s a fact. It really is OK as long as we learn from the mess and move on.
We have free will. It’s available to teach us that we aren’t all omnipotent, all wise, all knowing and we all need help, but choices and decisions ARE ours.
It just so much nonsense to not admit fact. So why, when we know we have erred and/or sinned do we try and bluff our way out, ignore, distance ourselves, and other such nefarious ill thought out behavior? A sin is a sin. We don’t just miss the mark, we sometimes shoot in the opposite direction! Talk about enlightened. And messes are also part and parcel of life. So rather than waste time, when we have made a mistake or we have sinned (a mistake does not necessarily define ‘sin’) do we compound the situation and make it 10 times worse than if we would just admit it straight away.
I find that as I grow older, my patience grows thinner with myself when I catch me doing precisely that. I can easily identify with Paul’s – “… I do the things I do not wish to do and don’t do the things I should do…” (paraphrase of Romans 7:15-20). Simply ‘human nature’? What a cop out! What a lame excuse. Does anyone actually believe this? Man up! Admit it when you err and especially when you sin. Don’t hide. Accept and move on. When you do, you’ll find yourself much further ahead then if you continue in the compounding behavior. Mess ups and Free will… are. Simply because we have Free will doesn’t mean that we are free from error – it basically means that we have the choice, we can choose to (fill in the blank).
I really don’t mind accepting responsibility nor in admitting error on my part – though I do admit a great irritation when others don’t have the same standard. Silly… we all have free will, remember! Free will is really a marvelous gift… but it is also an enormous responsibility. There can be no finger pointing with free will – it’s never the other person’s fault/problem, we chose what we chose. If you want to have free will then you have to assume the consequences of your words and actions. You can’t blame anyone else… period. Ever look at free will in that light?
Mess ups happen. They don’t need to control. We can change to a more effective plan to (fill in the blank). We have free will to make the choices and decisions, but it comes with the price tag that we have to accept the consequences of our actions and words. Ironically… free will really isn’t free. It’s always a test of our integrity, our character – at least in my world of definitions.
People are messy. Life is messy. This is not new information! How we go about living in this reality is all important. Why? Because it affects our attitudes and thus how we live. It can mold us. I suspect that it can also break us… depending on how we ‘handle’ it.
