Now go out there and make some mistakes!

Many years ago, I worked for an electric utility. It was my first job out of high school and was the way I put myself through college. The job was a meter reader. Yes, I was the popular guy that walked from house-to-house reading the electric meters that would eventually be the basis for your monthly electric bill (please remember this is a Christian blog and keep the comments clean :-) I would occasionally drive a pick up truck on my routes and as you can imagine, the more you drive, the more opportunity there will be for accidents. Of course, it happened to me and to say the least, I was devastated. Would I loose my job? Would it end up costing me money? It wasn't even my fault but I was responsible for the truck, what would happen to me?

Well, as with any large company and one with plenty of people to do 'investigations', my accident was assigned to the local safety manager. He was a nice guy and we had met before but now things were different. I wasn't the newbie that he could train, I was now the one being investigated. I will never forget what he told me, he came right out and said "the people that don't make mistakes are the ones not working." Basically what he was saying was that if you are out there trying to do the right thing and trying to do your job, there will be times when things happen that are unintended. Mistakes. Everyone makes them and if you aren't making them, then you are doing it wrong!

I was reminded of this story today when I read this blog post from someone on LinkedIn. It made me think about how I made mistakes at work but it also got me to thinking about the mistakes I make daily in my walk with Christ. But just as the safety manager tried to settle me, so too does Christ. None of us are perfect and we will all sin each and every day. Rather than beat ourselves up over our mistakes and failures, we need to learn from our mistakes and try to do better each and every day. What a great feeling to know that yes, I made mistakes today but the sun will come up tomorrow and I will have a chance to get it right on that day. What a wonderful gift! As long as we are trying, we will make mistakes and as long as we keep trying, God will continue to love us and prosper us in all that we do, mistakes and all!

Are you so afraid to fail or make a mistake that you end up doing nothing? Step out in faith and be willing to dust yourself off when you fall down, and you will fall down. Just don't let the failure or mistake define you, instead learn from it and grow in Christ!