Off The Beam
When Old Reactions Dress Themselves as Conviction
You can be healing and still have an old reflex.
You can be right about the issue and completely wrong in the way you handle it.
And sometimes the person most convinced he is displaying discernment is the one everybody else can clearly see has lost it.
There are seasons when things begin to feel different.
You've done some work.
You've dealt with some things.
You've started keeping shorter accounts. You've apologized where you needed to apologize. You've established some structure. Maybe your relationships are healthier. Maybe your mind isn't constantly running a hundred miles an hour. Maybe for the first time in a long time, you actually feel some balance.
You begin to recognize yourself again.
Maybe you even start thinking,
Man, I'm finally getting somewhere!
And then you wake up one morning completely off the beam.
Maybe you didn't sleep.
Maybe something happened at work.
Maybe somebody posted something online that hit exactly the wrong nerve.
Maybe you watched the news for fifteen minutes too long.
Maybe your wife said something completely harmless and you somehow heard an accusation in it.
It doesn't always take some massive spiritual attack.
Sometimes it just takes being tired, irritated, insecure, hungry, stressed, disappointed—or convinced you're right.
And suddenly that old version of you comes walking back through the door like he still owns the place.
Scripture gives us an intentionally ugly picture of this:
“As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.” — Proverbs 26:11
That's not exactly the verse we're putting on the coffee mug.
But sometimes ugly imagery is appropriate.
Because there are behaviors I've prayed about.
Confessed.
Repented of.
Made amends for.
Asked God to remove.
I've talked about how much I've changed.
I've probably even told somebody else how they ought to change.
And then somehow I find myself right back there.
Same reaction.
Same tone.
Same need to win.
Same sharp tongue.
Same broad-stroke judgment.
Different day.
Different subject.
Same vomit.
That's a hard thing to see in yourself.
Especially when you've done real work.
There is a particular kind of discouragement that comes when a man realizes he just behaved in a way he thought he had outgrown.
I've experienced that.
There have been moments when I realized what I'd said or how I'd treated someone and thought, After everything God has done in me, how the hell am I still capable of that?
It can make you feel like all the progress was fake.
Like all those months or years of discipline suddenly don't count.
In recovery, a man can have years of sobriety and then take a drink.
The years weren't imaginary.
The lessons weren't erased.
The discipline wasn't meaningless.
But something precious was broken.
There was a cost.
And sometimes that cost is enormous.
Character works similarly.
One reactionary moment doesn't erase everything God has built in you.
But don't use that truth to minimize what happened either.
You may not have destroyed your growth.
You may have damaged your credibility.
You may have wounded somebody you love.
You may have jeopardized a friendship.
You may have spoken words that somebody will remember long after you've forgotten the argument.
And sometimes the worst part is that we do all of it while believing we're standing on principle.
We call it conviction, discernment, courage...
We call it speaking truth.
James puts a different measure on it:
“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” — James 1:19–20
That last part is hard to get around.
Human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.
I can believe the right thing and still produce the wrong thing.
I can defend something righteous through behavior that isn't.
I can stand on truth while crushing a person beneath it.
And pointing back to the correctness of my position doesn't somehow sanctify the wreckage.
“I was right.”
Maybe.
But was I righteous?
Those aren't always the same thing.
One of the clearest signs of growth isn't that the old reaction never shows up again.
It's that I recognize it sooner.
That I can finally see the distance between what I claim God has been doing in me and what just came out of me.
And instead of only asking what somebody else said, posted, believed, or did —
I have to look at what it exposed in me.
