My Bad

The first time I remember someone using the phrase, "My bad," was in the early 90s. It was a friend of mine admitting a mistake with a smile. He truly knew it was his mistake but he really wasn't that concerned about it. It was more saying, "Yeah, I did it. Get over it."

This phrase seems to be a way of acknowledging something we've done wrong and putting it aside without truly repenting of it or even feeling bad about it. It is an ownership of something without accepting the full responsibility or weight of it. It is to own up to a wrong without really owning it.

My bad doesn't seem to include "I'm sorry. What can I do to make it up to you?"  It seems more of a way of sweeping something under a rug than picking up the pieces to repair the damage. There is truly something inauthentic about the phrase "my bad."

In Psalm 51, we read a true acknowledgement and ownership of wrongdoing: "[3] For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. [4] Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. [5] Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

David, feeling the burden of the sin in which he took Bathseba and killed her husband to cover up his adultery, laid his evil before the Lord admitting he was a terrible sinner. He said that he had always been given to sin and was worthy of condemnation.  David wasn't trying to sweep it under a rug, he was lifting his sin and his guilt to the heavens.

The point is that we do not need to get over our wrongdoing or put away our guilt. We need to be done with our sin and be freed from our guilt by fully confessing it and exposing our brokenness so that we can truly be healed: "Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed" (Js 5:16).  Jus' Say'n.