Just over 2 months ago, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the US. Just over 1 month ago, the first COVID related death in the US was announced. In the days surrounding both of those events, I heard plenty of people explain how COVID was a scam of some sort, a media fabrication, a government ploy, a Democratic strategy to help oust Trump, and most commonly-the flu’s weaker step-brother. In perhaps the most mind-numbing reporting of statistics that was factually accurate but presented conclusions that were the definition of stupid, folks commented incessantly how COVID’s death rate was so minuscule and how the flu had killed far more people. It was like a first-time flyer 1.5 seconds into the plane starting down the runway saying “my Prius can go faster than this.” Um, yeah, no duh. But get back to me on that in 10 seconds. Yet even 10 seconds later, or in this case a few weeks, when COVID had first claimed the lives of more than 500 Americans in back-to-back days, a young man sat in my living room and quickly repeated the tired line of how many more lives the flu had already killed. I said, “Well, if you multiply 500 by 365, you’d zoom past the annual flu death totals and that’s not to mention that this thing is apparently just getting ramped up. It could get a lot worse than 500 deaths in a day.” He didn’t fire back but his eyes sure seemed dismissive. Here we are a week later.

Checks Notes.

1,321 deaths today. 1000 deaths per day for the last few days and obviously trending upward.

But the point of this post isn’t to bore you with facts about how serious COVID is. I mean-we’re down to like 0.00001% who are still spewing dismissive hogwash about this virus. They have mostly all gone quiet. And if you wanted more details or more proof of how serious this is, just google it, or better yet, walk outside. Rather, the point of this post is to highlight a lesson we should all be learning about our words, about our opinions, about our social media posts. *GASP* Yes, especially, our social media posts.

If you are going to venture beyond posting the beautiful Bible verses, the funny memes about cats, or the family updates to delve into the political, social, financial, doctrinal, or even medical debates, odds are (and mounting with every additional post) you are going to err eventually. You are going to post some bombastic point of view that ultimately proves to miss the mark. Point blank–you are going to be wrong.

During the first few weeks of this COVID outbreak, I made the decision to “unfollow” a few Facebook friends, one of whom I worship with on Sundays. After schools and churches started shutting down for months at a time and “quarantine” became the 2020 word-of-the-year, I remembered that I had unfollowed them weeks ago and went back to see if it was safe to follow them again. You should know-I do love their family or sports or church or work or food-related posts. While I was happy to see the barrage of “You’re all stupid for believing this COVID news matters” posts had ceased, I was hopeful to find a change of tune. Even better, I was hoping to see a “Well, I missed this one. Call me a meteorologist. Whoops, my bad. Y’all stay safe. I’ll see you in May!” But…

Nope.

Nada.

4 weeks ago: “This is stupid! Our government is stupid! The media made this all up! The flu is way deadlier than this! You are all sheep for caring! I’ve got beach-front property in Kansas and a roll of toilet paper I’ll sell you for $100k!” (Ok, that last one was actually funny.)

Today: Crickets

Oh the respect I would regain for that person if they simply admitted that they were wrong!

Why is it so difficult for us to admit we are wrong? As Christians, many of us are quick to honestly report: “I’m just a sinner saved by grace! If my salvation was in any way dependent on how good I am, I would be up the creek without a paddle. I’m just a nobody trying to tell everybody about Somebody that can save anybody.” The list goes on. But if you pare down from the general to the specific, we don’t like to acknowledge specific errors. About the time I wanted to get my feathers ruffled about these friends failing to publicly admit how wrong they were, I remembered all the times I have admitted I was wrong. Publicly? Maybe 1 or 2. Maybe. I’m terrible at this too.

So let me lead by example.

I was wrong.

About what you may ask.

Pretty much everything, but I don’t think here or now is the right time to get into all the specifics.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, the irony.

ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE ME! (Takes ball and goes home.)