A stone for a wall or a path?

While most mistakes we make are not those that result in a permanent riff in a relationship with another, there is a tendency for us to recall the past ones made when the individual keeps making the same ones, isn't there? Most of the time, we do our best to not make the same mistake again, but if you have ever made the same one more than once, you know just how frightfully hard it can be to seek forgiveness, much less give it! Rarely do we look as mistakes as 'permanent' because we allow 'do-overs' in life. Wasn't the key labeled backspace on the keyboard really a way of allowing us to retype those misspelled words, or completely eliminate a thought we did not want to continue with in those written words? We all have those 'backspace' moments - those times when we know we have made mistakes, but we need to the grace of God to wipe them out so we can start over again.

Love forgets mistakes; nagging about them parts the best of friends. (Proverbs 17:9)

A man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful. But if he confesses and forsakes them, he gets another chance. (Proverbs 28:13)

Olympic downhill skiers don't learn their skill playing video games any more than we learn the 'art of forgiveness' from just saying we will forgive someone. Forgiveness is a skill best learned by active participation. How much more do my actions convey when I not only forgive, but also come alongside to embrace and help that other with their 'do-over' in life? Or to get just a little closer to home...when they embrace us and help us with our much needed 'do-over'? Life isn't easy and choices are made that sometimes don't always end up the way we want. Rather than seeing these mistakes as 'discards' in life, wouldn't it be wonderful if our mistakes could actually become the building blocks by which a thing of beauty could spring forth? By God's grace no mistake is ever wasted!

According to Webster, a mistake is a 'blunder in choice'. It carries the idea of a wrong act of judgment. We all suffer from impaired judgment at times, but we need never reject those moments of impaired judgment as stepping stones to help us take steps in the right direction. Admit the misstep and incorporate the lesson learned by it so you don't make it again! At that point, it isn't wasted - it becomes foundational to not making the same one again. Yes, you may make a similar one, but it won't be exactly the same. Yes, you may have a few stones laid before you realize they weren't leading you down the right path, but you can redirect any path! Path changes often come because we are reconciled by love - the love of Christ, then the love of those who befriend us on this earth. 

We are received by God without barrier - don't let mistakes become a barrier that keeps you away from being received by each other. We are the ones who take those mistakes and use them to either build walls that separate us, or turn them into paths that pave the way to newness in the relationship. Just sayin!

How much experience do you have?

Oscar Wilde aptly reminds us, "Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes." Some of us have more "experience" - almost 'too much' experience! Why? We've made lots and lots of mistakes. We've allowed those mistakes to not only occur, but we've learned from them. We simply don't want to waste them - because in God's hands even our mistakes can become very meaningful experiences in our lives!

We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit! (Romans 5:4-8 MSG)

We are 'makers' of trouble in our lives - but God isn't going to waste those troubles. He will turn those troubles into opportunities for his truths to be made real in us. We aren't being transformed by removing the troubles all the time. We are being transformed because those troubles turn our eyes to Jesus and there is no better transformation possible. If you were to write a resume of sorts - one that reflects all your life experience, what would you exclude? There are way too many experiences we might think served no value - because we still only see them as mistakes. God saw them as opportunities as soon as we made them - then he began turning them within his hands until they were fashioned into experiences of his grace!

The moment we stop criticizing ourselves for our mistakes and acknowledge them as opportunities for his hand to forge something different out of them is the moment they begin to become meaningful experiences. Did you ever stop for a moment to consider that 'forge' is the beginning of the word 'forget'? Could it be there is a direct link between God placing that mistake in the forge and our ability to forget the mistake - seeing instead the experience which now is displayed with jewels of grace embedded in it because of his 'fashioning grace'? Just askin!