No More Mr. Nice Guy: Saying Goodbye to Doormat ChristianityНамуна

You Have the Right to Be Right and the Right to Be Wrong

You have the right to be right.

“Have I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” (Galatians 4:16 NKJV).

One of the great weapons used by manipulators is the knowledge that if they sound right, those who are suffering from guilt will assume they are right. ­Recently I was speaking at a Christian college, and a student who appeared to be very upset asked if he could speak to me. As soon as we sat down in the coffee shop, he said to me, “Mr. Brown, I need some help in getting my life straightened out." I braced myself for a confession about drugs, pornography or cheating on exams. What this young man said surprised me. “Mr. Brown, I have to deal with my arrogance and pride.”

As I looked at this young man across the table from me, his head bowed, his spirit broken, and his eyes welling up with tears, I thought to myself, He may have a lot of things wrong with him, but arrogance and pride aren’t on the list. So I asked him how he knew that he was arrogant and prideful. He told me about a small group of Christians with whom he met regularly. One of the tenets of the small group was total honesty, ­and the week before, the group had decided to be totally honest with him. The whole meeting had been devoted to a discussion of what was wrong with him. It all boiled down to his arrogant and prideful attitude.

I said, “Have you ever considered that they were wrong about you?” From the look on his face, it was clear that he hadn’t. I continued, “I suspect that, given the fact that you are human, there must be some elements of pride in your life, but from this short time of knowing you, I don’t see that as your glaring sin.”

We talked for almost two hours. At the end of the time, he decided that maybe the group was wrong. But the fact is he had a horrible struggle because of his guilt. He had assumed that if someone said something untrue about him, he had to change.

Have you ever considered that they are wrong and you are right? (And, as a child of God, you should always be treated with respect . . . right or wrong!) There is absolutely nothing sinful about being right sometimes.

Maybe you have been told you’re dumb. Did you ever think that the people who told you that could be wrong? Perhaps you are afraid to articulate your ideas because you have been told that your ideas aren’t worth much. Did you ever think that the idea that your ideas aren’t worth much isn’t worth much? Perhaps you don’t need to apologize all the time. Have you ever considered that one doesn’t need to apologize when one is right? Have you ever entertained the idea that you were right?

The law of averages says that, generally, you will be right 50 percent of the time when you disagree with others, even if you only guess at the answer. That means that if you are counting yourself wrong more than 50 percent of the time, it may be that you have allowed your guilt to “muddle” your brains.

So, if you are apologizing most of the time, 50 percent of those apologies are lies. If you are assuming that, in every argument, you are wrong, you are lying to yourself at least 50 percent of the time. If you assume that others know better about your life, remember that you know better at least 50 percent of the time.

You also have the right to be wrong.

“And a voice came to him, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’ But Peter said, ‘Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.’ And a voice spoke to him again the second time, ‘What God has cleansed you must not call common’” (Acts 10:13-15 NKJV).

If the law of averages suggests that you will be right 50 percent of the time, that same law suggests that you will be wrong 50 percent of the time too. That’s okay.

I love the story of the physics professor who, at the end of the semester, made this announcement: “50 percent of everything I have taught you this semester is wrong. I just don’t know which 50 percent.”

Wouldn’t that be refreshing to hear from your pastor, your Christian friends, your Christian leader, yourself?

On the authority of God’s Word, I give you the permission to be right and wrong.