This week one of the boys decided to act like, well, a middle school boy. He was acting up, going a little bit crazy, and not really listening. I had corrected him, then cut him some slack and let him (and his friend who was going along with everything he did) participate in the game we were about to play even though they hadn't exactly been listening up to that point. I'm all for kids having fun.
But then, about a minute into the game chaos broke out. What was a fun, simple competition turned into all out insanity as this young man and his friends threw caution to the wind and disregarded every rule of the game, and everything I had said. After the girls won the game (they were they ones who actually competed by the rules) and the boys had cleaned up marshmallows from the gym floor twice (yeah, I told you they went insane), we continued our evening in small groups. Things kind of evened out at that point, and went back to a normal level of unpredictability.
Until the end.
After things were wrapping up for the night, the young man who had been the instigator of all the chaos came up to me and apologized. And it totally caught me off guard. I was shocked to see him approach me, and admit what he did was wrong. There was a genuineness about him that I hadn't seen before. A sincerity in his expression.
Looking back on it the thing that really hits me is the humility it took for him to come to me. I didn't approach him to talk to him about acting responsibly, or respecting authority. I didn't try to get him to repent. I didn't even initiate a conversation. It was all him.
I wonder how often when I've been in the wrong I've just swept things under the rug, just tried to ignore it and hope everyone else would too. How many times have I tried to avoid even admitting I'm wrong, not to mention avoiding the consequences of my actions. How many times has my pride kept me from repenting, not just to God but to the people I've wronged? Unfortunately it's happened many more times than I'd like.
Humility isn't an easy thing to come by. It is so contradictory to our nature. But the damage inflicted by our wrongdoings can be so much less, and healing can come so much sooner, when we are willing to humble ourselves and admit we were wrong.
