It’s OK to be Wrong

I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, and watch to see what He will say to me, and

what I will answer when I am corrected.

Habakkuk 2:1

Do you have space in your life to be wrong? Can I suggest to you that a willingness to be wrong may be

one of the greatest helps for any of us in growing in wisdom? I have found in my own life that the ability to

be teachable and correctable comes from a place of acknowledging that I do not have a bulletproof

understanding of many if not most things in life. Even with the Bible, to come to it with a sense of humility

and a willingness to admit that we don’t have any verse or passage completely searched out is a powerful

tool in its own right. So stop glazing over, stop making it cliché, because there’s never a time you can’t

learn something new or find out something you believed wasn’t quite as you saw it.

One of the most powerful stories I read years ago that helped me form in my study skills told of a student

in a class, probably high school or college, who was tasked with sitting down and examining a preserved

fish and writing everything he could in the span of an hour. As he sat there, for the first thirty or forty

minutes, he wrote down a handful of things and mused to himself about how foolish the assignment

seemed. The clock ticked, and as time went on and he got over his annoyance, he began observing

things that he’d missed. Near the time the hour was over, the page was filled up with information he had

gleaned about this simple, lifeless fish laying on a table in front of him. The teacher came in, viewed the

paper and said to the student, “Now, I want you to take 8 hours tomorrow and I want you to draw more

observations.” Would you believe that this assignment, while seemingly ridiculous, churned out not only

many more notes, but also gave this young man a major life lesson? The fish facts weren’t the lesson; the

truth that we often overlook what can only be drawn by careful observation was the lesson.

Now, please don’t go buying a fish and making it your life ambition to have the biggest list on a store-

bought fish out there. Here’s the point, though: if you’re going to grow with God, you’re going to have to

spend more time both paying attention while also acknowledging that you don’t have Him, or His Word, or

this life all figured out. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Habakkuk is a book of conflict, and in many ways, the internal confusion taking place on the part of the

prophet in understanding the ways of God. Why does God allow sin to happen amongst His people in

such a way that it seems unaddressed? Why does God then go on to allow godless nations to bring

judgment that is meant to correct His people? God can do anything any way He wants to; so why does

He do it in ways that seem at times to be neither wise nor prudent?

You see, there’s a marvel though to the fact that God doesn’t do things the way you or I think He should

do them. There’s a strange beauty to the reality that He doesn’t incessantly answer our prayers in the

ways we think He should, when we think He should answer them. Why? Because it reminds us that He is

God and we are not. Could you imagine dictating everything your heart desires to God only to have Him

turn around and do it? He’s not a shaky waiter up in Heaven keeping His eye on making sure your cup

stays full, you know? If it really looked like this, it would functionally make you God, if you’re telling God

what to do and He’s bending over backwards to make it all happen by your dictates.

While we may struggle with God allowing some super hard things into our lives or not giving us the path

we’d rather have, it all serves to remind us that we wait on Him because we are subservient to Him. We

may not follow Him, we may not desire Him, we may not believe in Him, we may reject Him, but that does

not change whether we rely upon Him for our existence. Every breath, every kick, every scream, every

teardrop, without God you’d do none of it.

One of the wisest conclusions a person may draw is that God is right, that they must wait upon Him in His

time, and that they stand to be corrected by the All-wise Creator. He knows what’s best for us and He

gives us what’s best for us every day, whether we think it’s true or not. Humility and correctability are crucial to living lives at peace with God. It starts with faith in Christ, but it continues on day by day with an

ever-present need to submit and resubmit to the One who controls everything. Be brave enough to be

humble before the Lord today. Don’t let your pride get in the way of the courage to follow Him with total

abandon. And remember, God loves you!

Sam Stringer

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by

permission. All rights reserved.