It’s Okay to Make Mistakes

I have a “go big or go home” personality.  When I do things, I often do them to the extreme.  Unfortunately, this happens both with successes and failures, and I tend to vacillate between a need for perfection and setting myself up for complete destruction.  It’s happened with diets, spiritual convictions, and other areas.  Either I am aiming for perfection and doing (at least in my own eyes) really well, or I succumb to temptation and then have an attitude of “Oh well, I’ve already failed; I might as well just keep going with the failure!”

Now, if I actually said those words out loud, it would probably stop me dead in my tracks and set me straight.  I don’t say the words, but that is how I frequently behave.  However, the key to avoiding self-destruction is what happens after a mistake is made … we need to get up, brush off the dust from the fall, and keep going.

I used to wail in frustration (or sometimes joke) to my husband or a friend, “I’m setting my kids on a certain path to the therapist’s couch!” And I make enough mistakes that I could convince myself of the truth of that statement.  But God …

 Oh Friend, we will make mistakes! We will falter and fail because we are human.

But it is likely not the making of the mistake that will have the most impact on our kids; how we handle the mistake will make all the difference in the world.

God does not expect perfection while we live on this earth.  He knows and understands our weaknesses.  And He will never, ever turn His back on a contrite heart (Psalm 51:17), and he will always forgive when we confess and repent (I John 1:9).

So when you make a mistake … and yes, I was bold enough to say when and not if … be quick to confess the mistake and show humility – to God, of course, but also to your children.  Let them learn from example what a humble heart and true repentance look like.  You will be amazed at how this living model impacts their relationship with you and with their siblings!

But God … God can take our mistakes and failures and use them for our good and His glory! My encouragement both to myself and to you this morning is this: It’s okay to make mistakes.  Use them.  Learn from them.  And trust God to bring good out of every situation.