When you make a mistake

So what do you do when you make a big mistake?

I recall a dream I had once awhile back.  I was trying to help a child I care about.  No names, please.  To keep it short and relevant, I ended up cutting off the kids leg and standing there looking at the mess and saying “What am I going to do now?”  Of course I woke immediately relieved to be done with that.  But the truth is, the dream has stayed with me for a long time.  It’s a caution to my spirit.  “Some things should not be attempted.”

A friend told me shortly after the dream that children in dreams represent our ideas and aspirations and that recognizable children represent efforts and hopes in progress.  So I was destroying my own dreams?  Not sure about that, but I do see that I’m not always rational in my approach to problems and I have a tendency to consider it my duty to solve things that aren’t always in my pay grade.

I’ve been dancing with David for quite some time in my morning time.  This morning I read about the Ammonites.  The king had died and he was friendly to David so David –the most powerful king in this time period sends a delegation to the funeral to express sympathy to his son, the new king.  When the envoy gets there, the nobles start talking smak to the King.  “David isn’t really concerned about you or your father’s passing.  He’s sent these men as spies to prepare him for war against us. Now that your father is dead and you’re a newby king, he’s thinking about conquering us.”

The king responded with the silliest thing in the world.  He made a show of power by shaving half the men’s beards off and cutting their garments down the middle to expose their buttocks.  Then he sent them on their way.  There! That should show the most powerful king in the region what’s what.  It didn’t take long for news to be news and David was offended greatly.  He sent the envoy to a small sparcely inhabited area to grow their beards out.  It doesn’t say he was planning to attack, but word got out that he was not at all pleased.

So what do you do when you made a big mistake?  This unwise king hired an army to defend the city and sent his own army out to attack Israel.  Joab was a wise general and soon the hired army ran off and the home boys went home and David’s army went home to Jerusalem.  Of course it didn’t end well for the Ammonites or the other army in a short time.  That’s for another day.  But it got me thinking about how we face our own foolishness –especially foolishness that involves injury to another.

I’ve had people do the “what was I thinking?” to me and I’ve done a few “what was I thinking?” to others.  The reasonable approach is an apology accompanied by an effort to make amends where you can.  But that’s so often not what is chosen.

Often people will gather others around them.  They hire an army of ‘friends’ and acquaintances to stand guard –generally figuratively.  I thought about it.  The Aramean armies probably had a different concept of what went on and what was about to take place.  I don’t know how many soldiers David had at this time, but these were incredible fighting men in small numbers and now there were many more.  Plus it was a stupid battle.  And God was generally on Israel’s side in a conflict.  The ‘friends’ abandoned the fight quickly.

Why is it that when we offend another without cause, we immediately gather people to our cause, insist that we are the ones wronged and that the others deserve to be punished.  I’ve seen it over and over.  Often the offending party does come out somewhat defeated –somewhat; but it’s still considered a viable tactic to avoid the sensible resolution.  Years ago I swore off this path.

The other tactic is to draw back, cloister behind walls and disassociate.  We must tell ourselves that we are better than the other person to keep from believing that we behaved badly.  Sometimes I realize I’ve done this.  It’s much harder to remedy than a simple initial apology and ends up much harder on our pride and any restoration of the relationship.

On Israel’s side, the truly offended party, I’m amazed that they had the good sense to just go home.  That takes a lot of confidence and integrity.  They didn’t cower when the fight came.  They assessed what they had to do to deal with the attack.  But when the Ammonite army went to hide behind their walls, they didn’t launch an all out attack.  They didn’t have to.  They had nothing to prove; they just went home.

So I hope that this story makes me think about not doing stupid stuff in the beginning.  But then if I rush into a ‘what was I thinking?’ moment I hope it helps me resolve it in integrity and honesty so I can get back to life with minimum damage.