“I know.”
“Oh, for sure.”
“See, that’s what I’ve been saying!”
“Told you so.”
How many things do you think you’re right about? How often do you hear phrases like the ones listed above? Expressions that indicate people already know. Or that they always knew. How often do you communicate like this?
ALL RIGHT THERE
On a recent personal retreat, I felt the Holy Spirit prompt me to write down everything I think I’m right about. After I started writing, I’m embarrassed to say that I thought I’d run out of ink! This surprised (and convicted) me. If you know me, though, I suspect you may have seen this result coming.
Almost no category in life, apparently, is outside of my reign of rightness. I had to stop writing my list when I jotted down that I even think I’m right about being wrong. When I look in the rearview mirror of my life and see areas that I’ve grown in, I instinctively double down on my rightness. I think, “There was a time I was wrong about this. But I’m not anymore. I’m even righter now because I know I used to be wrong.”
I’m fairly confident that this is not the best way to navigate life. For me or the people around me. For me, if I’m convinced that I am right about _________, then I must either conform other people to my rightness — or — tolerate their incompetence. At best. At worst, I must call them out or cut them off. For others, they instinctively sense my self-righteous judgment. Even if I think I’m holding it back. Everyone else in my life will have to decide whether to conform to my rightness, resist it, or modify it in some way. Like the current of a river, you may not see its impact on the surface, but you will feel it the deeper you wade in.
ALRIGHT, YOUR TURN
Do you know people like me? How safe do you feel to open your heart to them? Expose your doubts? Struggles? Failings? Wounds?
Do you relate to me? How many things do you think you’re right about? Can you diagnose people’s problems and prescribe the solution? Don’t fool yourself. Even if you just think you’re right, the people around you will feel it.
There is a bigger problem with always being right, though. It becomes difficult, maybe impossible, to hear from God and follow Jesus. Why? Because you’ll find that somehow, the Bible seems to affirm what you think you already know.
When was the last time God corrected you? When you read the Bible, how often do you feel like the Spirit of Jesus opens up darkened doors in your mind and floods your heart with radiant lights of insight that you did not even know existed?
I have recently discovered that I’m not “all right.” You’re welcome. And I’m sorry. But even more importantly, my soul has been reinvigorated with the truth that God is. And He is right about everything in a way that isn’t condemning but healing. His rightness is not confining; it’s liberating. His truth is the only thing that can set us free.
Jesus is even right about me — and you — being wrong. He was publicly exposed by our foolishness. Bound to the chains of our narrow self-righteousness. Crushed under the weight of our guilt. In the end, He was isolated from the loving, sustaining presence of God. When He cried out for God to hear Him, God did not listen to Jesus — because we have not listened to God.
ALRIGHT NOW
But that isn’t the end of the story. God’s great love is so powerful that He used the cross to put every wrong right. Jesus overwhelmed the grave, undoing the death our false rightness has caused. No one is all right! But because of what Jesus has already done, we can all be alright. Through faith in Him, we can be put right with God. By following Him, we can grow in living in right relationship with God and others. By trusting Him — we can have the freedom to say — I’m not all right, and that’s alright.
