I Apologized For Something I Did Not Do

There were about nine people in earshot and you said you were sorry.

Not sorry that it happened. You said sorry as though it had been you. You did not correct the assumption, you did not explain, and you did not point anywhere.

A decision made a thousand miles away by people you have never met, and you stood in your own building and took it.

The customer accepted the apology. That is the thing. She accepted it and she was fine afterward and she has been in twice since and it was clearly the right thing for that moment.

And you have not been able to decide what you did.

Some days it looks like the best thing you have ever done in that building. A woman took a weight rather than pass it up a chain that would not have caught it anyway, and the person in front of her went home settled.

And some days it looks like a woman who did not have the nerve to say it was not her.

That is the question, and it is not going away by itself, and it has been eight weeks.

There is a passage about somebody who did exactly this on purpose, and the detail in it tells you which one yours was.

Committed himself to him that judgeth righteously

Peter describes what Christ did under accusation.

Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. (1 Peter 2:23, King James Version)

Three things He did not do and one thing He did.

He did not answer back. He did not threaten. And He committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, which is an active thing rather than an absence.

You have a model for taking a weight rather than for avoiding one, and the Holy Spirit is the one who worked that in Christ. 1 Peter 2:23 puts an act in the middle of the silence rather than nothing at all, and He works the same thing in a person at a counter.

Now the detail that answers your question, and it is the third clause.

Committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. That is the tell. Silence with that in it is one thing. Silence without it is a different thing entirely.

Cowardice is silence with nowhere for the truth to go. It swallows the fact and keeps it.

What Peter describes is silence that hands the fact to somebody. The truth about who did what does not disappear; it gets committed to the One who judges rightly, and the person holding it stops needing to establish it in the room.

You are able to tell which one it was by asking where the truth went, and it is written that He committed himself to him that judgeth righteously. The Spirit of God is the one who receives a fact handed over like that, and 1 Peter 2 describes the handing as the whole difference.

So answer it now, and you already know.

On the day, in the moment, standing in front of a woman who had driven across town, did you know it was not your fault and did that fact go somewhere, or did you swallow it?

You have known the answer for eight weeks, and the Holy Spirit is the one who was there for it. Scripture puts the test on where the truth went rather than on whether anything was said, and He knows exactly where it went.

Why the question will not close by itself

Let me deal with the eight weeks, because the loop is the real problem now.

An unanswered question about your own character does not fade. It gets asked again by every similar situation, and there will be similar situations, and each one adds a layer.

And the question cannot be settled by thinking, because thinking has already been tried for eight weeks and has produced two answers on alternating days.

It gets settled by being named. Out loud. Once. Whichever answer it is.

You are able to close a question that thinking cannot close, and the written word gives a plain test rather than a feeling to consult. The Spirit of God is the one who settles a thing when it is said rather than when it is considered, and 1 Peter 2:23 supplies the test.

And here is what happens with either answer, so that neither one is frightening.

If it was grace, say so out loud, and the loop ends, and next time you will do it on purpose rather than by instinct, which is better.

And if it was fear, say that out loud too, and the loop also ends, and there is nothing terrible on the other side of it. A woman who names a moment of fear is not a coward; she is somebody who knows what she is working with.

You have nothing to dread from either answer, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is not disappointed by either version. It is written that the committing to God is what makes silence something other than swallowing, and He has been waiting eight weeks for the question to be said out loud rather than turned over.

Say which one it was

So here is the thing to do, and it takes about ten seconds.

Get on your own and say out loud which one it was. That was grace. Or: that was fear.

Then say: and that is closed.

You are naming rather than deciding, and 1 Peter 2:23 gives you the test to name it by. The Spirit of God is the one who receives it, and He has known which one it was since the afternoon it happened.

The reason it has to be out loud is that eight weeks of alternating days has proved that the inside of your head cannot settle it. It has two answers and it will keep offering both.

Said out loud, one of them becomes the record, and the other one stops being available, and the loop has nothing left to run on.

You have been running something that a single spoken sentence stops, and the Holy Spirit is the one who closes it. The written word puts the whole difference in where the truth was sent, and 1 Peter 2:23 is where the closing comes from.

Then open in the morning and stand at the counter the way you always do.