Learning From Our Mistakes

We all make mistakes and it’s what we do after the mistake that is the measure of who we are as a person. 

If you refuse to learn from your mistakes, you will be poor, and no one will respect you. If you listen when you are criticized, you will be honored.

Proverbs 13:18

It is no surprise to God that we make mistakes.  His plan is not for us to sit in a corner because we fear making a mistake.  God desires that we limit our mistakes by seeking to know and do His will in all our affairs and when we do stumble, admitting the mistake and learning from it.    God even promises us honour when we take this route.

The Bible is full of stories of people who made mistakes.  God’s people have never been perfect people.  The stories of their mistakes are included in God’s record of human history, not to shame the individuals but rather that we could learn from their mistakes and avoid making the same ones.

The things that happened to those people are examples. They were written to be warnings for us. We live in the time that all those past histories were pointing to.

1 Corinthians 10:11

Someone outlined a simple plan for dealing with mistakes that had these 5 points:  Own it.  Apologize.  Accept the consequences.  Learn from it.  Let it go. 

God made a way for us to deal with our mistakes.  Jesus died that we might be forgiven our sins and His blood cleanses us from our past wrongdoing. We know and rely on these familiar words, don’t we?

But if we confess our sins, God will forgive us. We can trust God to do this. He always does what is right. He will make us clean from all the wrong things we have done. 

1 John 1:9

Heavenly Father, we want to learn and grow as people who follow You and serve others.  We know we’ll make all sorts of mistakes so our prayer is that we, first of all, would make as few mistakes as possible by seeking Your will in all we do. 

When we do get it wrong, give us the courage to deal with it quickly, learn from it, and let it go.  Amen

Well, let’s not excuse our mistakes by acknowledging we are only humans but let’s also find that balance that doesn’t focus too much on the error rather than on the lesson.