Perfect Mistakes

Perfect Mistakes

By: C.J. Peterson

Mistakes. Some are the best thing that ever happened to us, some we would like to forget, but we all make them. The question is what to do with them? Do you quit and walk away, or do you learn from them and not make the same mistake twice? Do you have the strength and hope to push forward and get it done?

I’ll be taking a few inspirational words from Albert Einstein for this posting:

- “Anyone who has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new.”

Are you afraid to make a mistake? Are you nervous to mess up? Are you anxious, wondering if your dream is really achievable? That dream was given to you for a reason. Mistakes will happen. Things may even reach nuclear levels. The key is to keep whatever your motivation is in front of you. And, if that dream or goal magnifies and lifts the Kingdom in some way, you know God will give you the strength to get it done.

Galatians 6:9 tells us, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

There are days as an author that I want to give up. Inevitably, those are the days where I hear from a reader where the words and messages in one of the books encouraged them in some way. If God puts it on your heart, He will help you get it done.

- “Learn from yesterday, Live for today, and Hope for tomorrow.”

When we make mistakes we need to evaluate what went wrong and try it again, focusing on the goals and dreams you are working on achieving. Keep that dream in front of you. Look forward with the hope inside you, knowing you can get it done.

Proverbs 9:9 reminds us, “Give instruction to a wise man and he will be still wiser. Teach a righteous man and he will increase his learning.”

Proverbs 1:5 says, “A wise man will hear and increase in learning, and a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel.”

If you’re not sure where you went wrong, check with a mentor or a colleague. They may have made the mistake already. There is a reason we study history. It’s to make sure history doesn’t get repeated.

As a youth leader, we mentor the teens in youth group. We sometimes share our stories so they can learn, and not have to learn the hard way. A wise person will learn from the mistake of others.

It’s in evaluating the mistakes we’ve made, that we learn and can perfect our goals and dreams. Have you learned from your mistake, or did you just give up and walk away? Don’t look at the mistake as a failure. Look at it as a way to start over more educated. To me, they are ‘perfect mistakes,’ because it’s by those mistakes that I will eventually achieve perfection. My prayer is that this may encourage you to pick it up if you walked away, or to keep going forward even if you made mistakes!