Can You Learn from Your Mistakes?

Con Campbell tells the story of a man walking into a convenience store in Australia.  He put a $20 bill on the counter and asked for change.  When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register.  The clerk did as he was told.  The man took the cash and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter.  The total amount of cash he got from the drawer? Fifteen dollars!

We all act foolishly at times.  Without correction, our poor choices can become habits. We’ll become “fools…(who) lack sense.” (Ecclesiastes 10:3) In Ecclesiastes, wisdom and folly are often set in sharp contrast.  Folly (or the fool) is tied to wickedness (7:17) and is the opposite of wisdom (2:19). In Jeremiah we read that the foolish are “skilled in doing evil” (4:22) and lack moral sensitivity. They’re “senseless people, who have eyes but do not see, who have ears but do not hear” (5:21).

It’s hard to admit our mistakes.  Sometimes we need to think about a character flaw we might have and that’s painful. Sometimes we might have to admit we made a decision quickly and the next time we should slow down and think first.  It never pays to ignore our foolish ways.

God can use our foolish decisions to discipline and shape us.  Discipline is almost never “pleasant at the time” but it yields good fruit in the long run (Hebrews 12:11).  We all have some foolish behavior and at times we all need to be corrected.  Let’s accept our Father’s discipline for our foolish behavior and ask God to make us more like the sons and daughters He wants us to be.

Prayer – Thank you God, for using my foolishness to train me.  May I accept your discipline graciously as you continue to work on me.  Amen.

Ecclesiastes 10:2-3 – A wise man’s heart leads him to do right, and a fool’s heart leads him to do evil.  You can identify a fool just by the way he walks down the street.

Author: Tommy Herndon