Mistakes

We all make them. That is part of our human experience. So why is it that some mistakes cause us minor inconveniences and other can completely derailed us? I believe that it has to do with two things 1) our response to our mistakes and 2) the ripple effect of our mistakes affecting other people.

When our mistakes are only related to ourselves and don’t involve others, then it can be a lot easier to overcome them because the only thing we need to change is ourselves (although, that can be sometimes the most difficult thing to do).

When our mistakes affect others, then we need to try to correct the situation and make it up to them. However, we cannot think or respond on behalf of others and so to some extent we may have to resolve the fact that things may never be made right and so we live with the consequences of our mistakes.

Why does it seem that God our creator allowed or even specifically built-in this particular flaw in our human design to make mistakes? Well, I think it is intimately connected with the gift He gave us called free will.

Our free will is the only thing we have to offer back to God (since He owns everything). In other words, it is the only thing we can use to express our love or not towards God. However, if we had been designed without the ability to make or even recognize mistakes, then if we expressed free will for one thing, we would be forever attached to that expression.

Assume it was an expression to love ourselves and not God. What then? We’d go along infatuated with ourselves and ignore all the good things that God provided for us and end up on a self-destructive course by consuming things we want maybe like drugs, alcohol, sex, position, power or money without having any offsets. In the end, we would be poisoned and disillusioned but wouldn’t know any better.

With the ability to make and recognize our mistakes, we can respond accordingly and choose a new or different expression of our free will whenever we find it necessary.

For clarification, a mistake is an incorrect act or decision caused by bad judgment, lack of information or care or even a misunderstanding of something. We can break the word apart into its two basic word blocks of Miss and Take to dig a little deeper. If we define the word Take as to do something and the word Miss as to not hit the target, then we can easily see that in order to overcome our mistakes all we need to do is aim again and take another shot. In other words, do something different. I hope you will find encouragement not only in this information but also in this scripture quote:

There is therefore now no condemnation to them, which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:1 KJV)