LEARNING FROM OUR MISTAKES

Zechariah 6:1-7:14; Revelation 15:1-8; Psalm 143:1-12; Proverbs 30:24-28

“This is what the Lord Almighty says: Judge fairly, and show mercy and kindness to one another. Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners, and the poor. And do not scheme against each other. Your ancestors refused to listen to this message. They stubbornly turned away and put their fingers in their ears to keep from hearing. They made their hearts as hard as stone, so they could not hear the instructions or the messages that the Lord Almighty had sent them by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. That is why the Lord Almighty was so angry with them.”

‘And they were singing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb: ‘Great and marvelous are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty. Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations. Who will not fear you, Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous deeds have been revealed.’”

“Let me hear of your unfailing love each morning, for I am trusting you. Show me where to walk, for I give myself to you. Rescue me from my enemies, Lord; I run to you to hide me. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. May your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing. For the glory of your name, O Lord, preserve my life. Because of your faithfulness, bring me out of this distress.”

“There are four things on earth that are small but unusually wise. Ants—they aren’t strong, but they store up food all summer. Rock badgers—they aren’t powerful, but they make their homes among the rocks. Locusts—they have no king, but they march in formation. Lizards—they are easy to catch, but they are found even in kings’ palaces.”

My son has just left for a semester abroad in Ecuador. No doubt, the experience will be a defining moment for him, but it is also a defining moment for me. On one hand, it has caused me to look again at the way I think of my son, not as a child but – gasp! – as a man. No longer do I have the ability, much less the right, to tell him what to do. He is, literally and figuratively, beyond my control. I have to adjust to these ideas, no matter what my paternal instinct says. He is fine with all the changes and the independence, thank you very much. My problem is my problem. Letting go, however, is only half of it. The rest is that I’ve been given the chance to review my role as father, and I am not terribly pleased with the job I have done. Don’t misunderstand. The son has become far more than the old man could have dreamed. What troubles me is that, to some extent, I think his successes have mostly been in spite of, not because of, my example and how I raised him. Looking back, I know I said and did things that were completely inappropriate in my role as parent. I emphasized the wrong points. And I made discipline more about me than him. Retrospectively, I can only give thanks to God that He gave my son such incredible resiliency, and that my son has such a forgiving spirit.

But there’s also another thing I can do. I can learn. And so can he. He does not have to perpetuate the precedent I established. He can be a better father than I have been. History does not have to repeat itself. The Lord Himself has said so. I may be the best bad example I know. But I can allow my son to learn from my mistakes. I can be sure he understands they were mistakes. In a word, I realized I had to confess my failings to him, not just for me, but for him. I cannot expect him to break the mold if he does not understand its limitations in the first place.

Finally, the time came. My son asked me to smoke one final cigar with him on the back porch before he left for his trip. His treat. That doesn’t sound like much, and may even be off putting to some, but for us guys, cigars in the backyard are something of a ritual. When the cigars come out, it means serious business is about to get done. Maleness, and independence, are recognized. Problems, hopes and dreams are shared among peers, not parent-child. I’m not really sure how we came to this, but in a strange way, cigars on the porch have become a right of passage, a sign of maturity claimed and recognized. They have become, more often than not, sacred moments.

So, I took the opportunity to confess my failings as a father and to ask my son’s forgiveness. It was not that I was telling him anything he did not know. After all, he’d been there, an unwilling participant. It was that, in a real way, I was offering him myself in a way I never had done before. Transparently flawed, I laid my regrets before him, and left him with a decision every man must confront at some point: what will you do with your father? I had no expectations, did not really know what his reaction would be. I only knew it was a decision he had to intentionally make if he was ever going to be his own man. And it was important that he understand he was making a decision when he responded.

Incredibly, there was not a word of criticism in his reply. He spoke instead of the good examples I’d set, the times when my own perseverance gave him a model to help him work through his own problems. He told of the ways I’d inspired him and been a light that allowed him to find his own way home. Sacred moment? You bet it was! But it was more than that; it was a conversion moment. It was the very second when my son became a real man. I will be forever blessed that my heavenly Father allowed me to be there to see it and give testament to it.

I learned from my mistakes that day, but the lesson I took from the experience was not the one I expected. My mistake was that I thought I’d behaved in an unforgiveable way. I thought I would reap what I’d sowed. I did not give my son enough credit for compassion or understanding. He’d already learned all he needed to know from my bad example. He’d learned how to forgive it, and how to grow through it in the inexplicable and irrational love that only the Holy Spirit can provide. I mistakenly thought the guilt I felt for my shortcomings was a burden I’d need to carry to the grave, praying just that it would not warp my son. What I learned from my mistakes, though, was something entirely different. We are so focused on our sins as we bring them to the altar of Christ. We place them with fear and trembling at His feet, bound up with anxiety not just about our own guilt but the fates of those we’ve hurt along the way. What a blessing it will be to finally learn that Jesus’ “final answer” for His Children’s sin will not be one of surprise, but accommodation. We worship a God so good that He truly can make all things work to good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, however flawed those people and their actions may be.