the parent principle.

(granting grace for arrogance. pt. 2)

a bit of backstory…

So this is actually a part 2 to my last blog post, where we talked about granting grace for arrogance. Today I wanna expand a little more and discuss granting grace for ignorance as well; I find the two tend to go hand in hand.

Ever hear of the “child touching the hot stove” idiom? You know, the one where the parent warns the child not to touch the hot stove, the child does it anyway, and then comes running back to mommy when they inevitably get burned? Yeah that one. It’s based on the idea that sometimes we actually have to make the mistake to finally learn from it (Proverbs 16:18).

That’s a very true and powerful lesson (trust me, I’ve got a few burns myself over the years!), but I think we don’t talk enough about the other half of it. Namely how the pain (and embarrassment) can affect us so much that, not only do we learn a little more about just how much we don’t know, but we realize a little more just how much other people do know, and how to trust the wisdom of others (Proverbs 12:15).

the foundation.

Funnily enough this past Monday at work, I was on a Zoom call with a coworker. I’d recently made a change and he wanted to learn how I did it. He shared his screen with me and I walked him through what I did. He then decided to make a change of his own, but the way he was going about it wasn’t right and was going to make things more complicated. I recommended he do it a specific way based on issues I’ve seen and what’s worked for me in the past. He decided to continue doing it his way anyway.

I mean, I was beyond annoyed; this guy has a tendency to challenge me like this all the time. But I just said:

“Ok.”

(My camera was off, of course.)

I let him continue. One, because I was genuinely open to being wrong. Two, because I knew that if I was right, his ego was too big to simply listen; he had to “burn his hand” on the proverbial stove.

He makes his changes and, sure enough, things happened exactly as I described: he ended up having to go back and undo everything he’d just done, and…ultimately made the change more complicated than it needed to be. Gratefully, it wasn’t a dire mistake (otherwise I wouldn’t have let him make it). But I allowed him the space to make the mistake because it not only allowed him to see for himself that he was wrong and can trust me a little more in the future, it showed him that I respected him enough as an autonomous person to make his own decisions, just as God does us.

By being there after the fact to calmly walk him through cleaning up his mess, it showed him that I wasn’t leading with my ego, which helped him to drop his ego as well (Romans 15:1-2).

the plot twist.

But I got a bit of an ego wake-up call myself at the end of the week. I was working on that device issue I mentioned in my last post...

We left off with me praying for the “arrogant” engineer who wouldn’t even consider my suggestion being humbled by her mistakes, and me working with a new, escalation engineer who actually validated my suggestion as a viable solution...

By mid-week, I finally had what I needed to try my proposed fix, and decided I’d do it on Friday (so that it wouldn’t affect too many people.)

Friday morning comes and I’m excited. I prance into work, get situated, open my laptop, implemented my change and…

…nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Still the same issue. No matter how many times I tried. That’s right, it seemed I was wrong. Thankfully my change was still a net-positive and didn’t cause any issues, but needless to say that let the wind out of my sails. I decided I’d look into it further later on that night when I got home. I had to figure out what the issue was. My pride (yes, I admit I have some pride) wouldn’t have let me sleep if I didn’t.

So I get home. Eat. Rest a bit. Then get back into business. Despite all the work I’d put in over the past few weeks, I decided to start over from what I thought I knew and look at the issue again with fresh eyes. Take new diagnostics. Check the configurations again. Rethink my logic. I ran some new tests, looked them over line by line, but I couldn’t make much sense of it; it was a huge file with lots of data. At first glance, I saw certain logs that didn’t make sense so, throwing caution to the wind, I took the file and ran it through our corporate AI bot to review and give me a summary. The summary pointed out that same thing I’d saw earlier that didn’t make any sense to me.

I thought it had to be a misunderstanding, so I went back and reviewed the configurations again.

This time… I saw the issue.

I made the required change and sure enough, that fixed it! The problem was solved almost instantaneously—I couldn’t believe it.

And would you believe… it was something the previous “arrogant” engineer mentioned in passing during one of our calls.

I realized that I’d passively dismissed it in favor of trying my solution first. I guess she must’ve forgotten about it because she never mentioned it again. I essentially did the same thing to her that I complained she’d did to me!

I was so busy pointing the finger at her that I didn’t realize I had 4 more pointing back at me. (Matthew 7:3-5)

the confirmation.

At that point, I learned a lesson in ego. Yes, I pray, and I try my best to stay humble. But sometimes. I still make the same mistake (Proverbs 24:16). I still touch that “hot stove”. And God knew He had to let me take a burn to my ego to be reminded of the lesson.

I realized that in a lot of ways, this is how all good parents relate to their children; how God relates to us. As I touched on in this post about free will, God allows us the space to make mistakes, but He’s also always there for when we inevitably come running back (with our tails tucked between our legs), with open arms and abounding grace (Romans 8:38-39).

wrapping up.

Just as Jesus is always chasing after His lost sheep and desires to save as many of us as possible: He doesn’t want us to make mistakes just because. He wants us to learn (after maybe hitting our heads a few times), that we need to TRUST HIM. He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:1-6). Trust His word. Trust His wisdom. He knows we’re gonna get ahead of ourselves at times. But the question becomes:

Will we continue to egotistically forge ahead anyway to our destruction, or will we humble ourselves and return to Him for the guidance we so desperately need?

so tell me…

What stoves have you burned your hand on this week? Or what are the most memorable “burns” you’ve received? When or where have you used the “Parent Principle” in your life lately?

Drop a comment below and let me know. And don’t worry, it’s all love here. 🫶🏾

And PS: Happy Mother’s Day to all of us lovely, beautiful moms out there! It’s not an easy job but we get up and do it everyday by the grace of God. 🤰✝️🤱

Enjoy your day ladies! 💆‍♀️💙💁‍♀️

in grace and peace,

gina. 💙