Do you hate making mistakes?
If you’re anything like me, you probably hold yourself to really high standards.
If you’re a Jesus follower, you’re actually called to be perfect as He is perfect.
But because you're not Jesus, you will fail.
So, what happens when you mess up?
Do you feel like a failure, try to run away, numb the pain, isolate, ignore, do some negative/sinful addiction (porn/drinking/eating...) just to stop feeling the terrible failure-feelings?
The problem is, even though we know we’re saved by His sacrifice, we often still struggle with shame and guilt for our mistakes.
But here’s the truth: understanding mistakes the right way can change how we view them, how we can grow from them and how they make us feel when they inevitably will happen.
Mistakes generally fall into three categories:
- Mistake: Rebellion– When mistakes become a pattern of intentional sin consistently. This requires a lot of focus and all the advice given in #2, below.
- Mistake: Sin – When we go against God’s Word, we need to humbly own, repent and turn back to Him. AND from that, we get to be washed by His amazing sacrifice.
- There may need to be actions taken to repair the situation of others involved or you need to find healing for yourself so these sins won't happen again.
- But because of Jesus, the actual guilt has now been paid for by the only one who can pay for sin -- someone sinless -- Jesus.
- So you no longer need to take the punishment of the shame/guilty feelings anymore.
- Action does need to happen to rectify the situation, and let any negative feelings motivate you to put the structure, healing process, boundaries, people, community, in place to walk in freedom and righteousness.
- Mistake: Wisdom – These are simply errors in judgment, strategy or approach. It's essentially making a mistake in walking out wisdom. A lot of times we know better and we can't seem to get ourselves to do the wise thing every time.
- It's not an outright sin, as clarified Biblically. It just was kinda dumb (yeah, I know the feeling well.) Or you realized later how you made someone else feel and realized you did the wrong thing. Or maybe you didn't so something as perfectly as you expect of yourself and you feel ashamed.
- Even though maybe it wasn't capital S, "Sin", it can make you feel just as failure-like as if you DID something horrible. As if you ARE something horrible.
- The sad part is, sometimes that failure-feeling can make us want to run so bad that we metaphorically run and actually do something horrible (an real Sin: porn, addiction, rage... fill-in-the-blank SIN).
But what if we didn't HAVE TO strive to achieve in perfection?
What if we didn't HAVE TO strive to meet our incredibly high (non-sin) standards OR feel like a failure? And our Sin standards don't change.
The solution? Well, my solution is this... instead of feeling like a failure, aim to be 80% on point in the Wisdom Category. That way, you’ll stay motivated and keep improving in living out wisdom without getting stuck in discouragement/feeling-like-a-failure. You'll get A LOT farther this way in every area of life than you would being "perfect" for a while then super discouraged (maybe even dropping into some Sin) and on and on the cycle goes.
And sadly... often people just get so tired and give up and accept hopelessness. Here's the plan regarding mistakes: Keep high standards on righteousness issues, try hard to meet them---lean on Jesus for His perfection and sacrifice when we Sin. Have high standards on Wisdom things, but when we make mistakes be really happy if we aren't making that mistake 80% of the time.
When you handle mistakes in the right way, they actually help you move forward instead of holding you back. I dive deeper into this in today’s episode, and I think you’ll find it really encouraging—because if you’re anything like me, you’ve made plenty of mistakes.
And the good news? God has so much hope for you, and every single mistake has value.
