Well if you got a notification email from about last week' blog post, again this week, then my apologies are in order.
Yes, a mistake was made. The kind that comes from having lots to do, and relying on automated programs to do the remembering for you. I feel awful...and dirty...like a spammer.
Anyhow, there is something that we can learn here. And I'm not going for the "everybody makes mistakes" cliche. That's so overdone. No, I want to talk about the value of mistakes.
If we look at mistakes from the perspective of God, who has an intense desire to see us mature into healthy, productive, well rounded, beings within His Kingdom, then a mistake is not just a screw up, it's an opportunity.
When James and John, disciples of Jesus, got their mom to pitch the idea that they should be the Messiah's sidekicks, it was a massive fail. But Jesus used it to teach humility to all the disciples, and to all of us.
When David, the old testament king of Israel, got all adulterous and murderous, you would think that God would just cut His losses and raise up a new king. But, no, David was family, and warts and all God loved him back to righteousness.
Even today, I look at my life and can see that in spite of the mistakes, fumbles, foibles and outright wrong things that I have done, He has used them all to make me less of a drooling, childish human being. I can look back and be aghast at the things I've done only because I have learned from them.
It's like with my kids, I try to tell them that unless they learn from their mistakes, then they are most likely going to repeat them.
On the other hand, if they do recognize the error of their ways and build the kind of character that will prevent them from doing the same thing again, then my fatherly heart is greatly warmed. And that is how God feels when we finally get it.
It's not about condemnation and gotcha games. Mistakes are those wonderful slices of life that allow us to see the very real consequences of our actions and change because of it. Unfortunately, much of this world has dedicated themselves to recasting their mistakes and failures as enlightened success.
Aren't you so glad that, as Christians, we don't have to do that?
But you know what also doesn't have to pretend to be something it isn't? That's the question for the day. Which is: "What would you say to a spammer?
Be sure to leave your interesting, creative, humorous or insightful responses in the comment section below, or on FaceBook. And if you have any questions for me, post them and I will respond to them here. I'm Locke Morgan with Restoration Ministries Worldwide, thanks for watching.
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