"Vincent!" Anna's voice crackled with concern. "What did you do?"
Vincent's voice had a little less emotion, but didn't sound happy. "I didn't mean to do anything. It just happened. It's all my fault."
"Let me fix it," Anna said. It was at this point that I began to move towards the scene of whatever crime had just occurred. Hopefully the police would let me past the yellow caution tape.
I reached the bathroom just in time to find Anna cutting Vincent's right side burn off with my wife's sewing scissors. A ragged line of poorly trimmed hair extended back to just above his ear.
"What are you doing, Anna?" I asked, hoping I sounded calm. I felt an odd feeling like laughter coming on and I desperately tried to squelch it.
"It's my fault, Dad," Vincent said again. "I was trying to cut some of my hair that was touching my ear with these scissors. It was just too long. I guess I cut too much off."
"I just evened things up on this side," Anna said with confidence. With big sisters like this, who needs barbers? I wasn't so sure about the situation. "Now," she continued. "I'll just try to match the other side to this one."
Anna lifted her scissors to make another trim, this time on the left side of Vincent's head.
"Anna," I said. Please don't cut any more. Let's get Mom to look at it. She has a little more experience in trimming hair than you do."
Anna hesitated, lowering the scissors just a hair. "I don't think we need to bother Mom," she said.
"Elaine," I called out. When my wife arrived and surveyed the situation, she began to shake with scarcely controlled laughter. Vincent, of course, didn't take kindly to all of this attention.
"Anna," Elaine said. "Put the scissors down. We'll trim things up with the hair clippers. It won't be perfect, but it should look better than if you cut more off with those."
Recently, the idea of competence has bounced around in my brain. Many of the most confident people are not terribly competent, while many people who are quite capable are soft-spoken and quick to second guess their own abilities.
The Apostle Paul wrote, "It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God." (II Corinthians 3:5) He, of all people should have felt qualified. He had already started numerous churches and written letters that would end up forming a good chunk of the New Testament. His humility stands out. He had plenty of qualifications, but at the end of the day, he knew that without God he had no ability worth anything.
My daughter had utmost confidence in her ability to fix a hair catastrophe. Her brother, because of her confidence (and his realization that he couldn't fix it) let her make the situation quite a bit worse.
In many situations, narcissistic men and women push their way to the top, blaming their own failures on their "incompetent" subordinates, while claiming all of the victories as resulting from their own skill and vision.
Worst of all is when this happens in church situations. Those who lead the church must have a greater understanding than anyone of their own weaknesses and their need for God's strength and wisdom to carry on.
I value competence over confidence any day of the week, but even more than that, I treasure those who are humble enough to know the source of their strength and realize their own limitations. They are the ones who can yield to wisdom when dealing with a Level 2 Hair Disaster in the upstairs bathroom -- even if they are certain they could fix the situation with a few well-placed scissors strokes.
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