Father, forgive us for the times we taught what we thought was right, but wasn’t

This could well be a prayer that includes being sorry for teaching, advocating for, or using as advice any of yesterday’s wisdom that, as it happens and as it could be revealed, now or in the future, was flawed and even possibly harmful.

There are so many examples of dogmas we’ve used that seemed wise and godly at the time (by yesterday’s standards) but have since been shown otherwise. The scary thing is, what we should have known at the time wasn’t so obvious back then, but perhaps in many cases should have been.

We judge yesterday by today’s standards and today’s judgement offers little sympathy, even though we didn’t have the benefit of hindsight back then.

I know and feel personally the burden of helping many whilst seemingly harming a few. You see, I write from the perspective of prophetic insight with limited wisdom. I don’t see all the ramifications.

But I’m not the only one impacted. Any pastor or leader who preached or led twenty years ago would not practice their ministry the same way today. Some of those practices were wrong. Some of those methods did harm. And where that shows up today, no matter how sincere we were back then, it’s incumbent on us to confess the error, even if it wasn’t entirely our fault, and even if none of it was our fault. The least we can do is say we’re sorry for harm caused, even if we had no idea about it back then.

In our intent to offer hope, we can at times quench the precious spirit of hope in those who bear a struggle we either don’t understand or aren’t mindful of. For good example these days, in a #MeToo era, is the heightened awareness of abuse and trauma. Whilst psychologists have been concerned about these for decades, society has only caught up very recently.

It wasn’t that long ago that Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder wasn’t a thing. In fact, it was less than forty years ago in 1980 that PTSD became a diagnosable disorder. That’s one thing. Complex-PTSD is widely recognised now, and it has been since the 1990s, but not yet formally in the DSM-5.

Slowly but surely more people in helping professions are becoming “trauma informed,” but there is always a significant lag, which is sad particularly given the almost universal role of trauma within common human life. Damage is done in the “helping” today because many in the helping professions are still ignorant.

In balancing the burden of helping many whilst harming some, with the call to write, I fear for the times when my writing harms people (or even one) by being clichéd or by just being plain wrong because it doesn’t consider all the factors.

It’s a risk when one day it might work out there’s a litany of things I taught that weren’t right, to the degree they helped some but not all, especially if they actually do harm.

But this is the risk we take, as we step forth into God’s call, and offer to do our best. Sometimes our best won’t stand the test of time.

This is why now and always we must continually be aware of the harm we may do even in endeavouring to do good.

“Father, forgive us for the times we taught what we thought was right, but wasn’t. Help us acknowledge these failings, and the trauma caused, whether they’re our fault or not.”