Over the past month or so I've been bombarded by this divine message:
"It is more important to be loving than to be right."

I first read it in Sojourners magazine in May. It's been all over the pages of books I'm reading and sermons I hear. Almost it has seemed to float down on waves of pollen that overtake every surface and eventually are ground in and become part of the wood grain.

I love being right. I love having the best way to do something and the most knowledge on a subject, or at least some little tidbit of information that others did not possess before our interaction.
I also love being loving, but not when it costs my plans, my way, my will.


So I wrote it on my mirror. Then I have to look at it several times a day.
Then I really began to hear it and read it more and more. I really began to think about it a lot, and what it could mean for me in different situations.
Then I was presented with a specific, "rubber hits the road" case. The worst of me comes out when you have to live with me. Stubborn and stiff I resisted change and didn't want to budge when living with new roommates. "It is more important to be loving than to be right."
I finally submitted to the message. At least in one area of seemingly impassable lifestyle differences. Kingdom victory!

We HAVE to rejoice in the little things like that. Which, in fact, reminds me of the other divine message being engrained in me these days: My efficiency is not God's efficiency.
He decided that the best way to change the course of history was to spend three and a half years mostly hanging out with a motley crew of 12 dudes.
Human efficiency looks like super-structured, mass-produced programs that reach thousands for maximum result from minimum expenditure of time, energy, and money.
I need to have that taken apart and replaced with God's relational, individualized plan. Every day.