It’s OK to Make a Mistake

It’s OK to make a mistake and we all do it. The vast majority are not a big deal and are only an inconvenience for most of us. Other kinds of mistakes can be more significant, especially if you have responsibility for others. Most mistakes can be prevented by taking a moment to weigh the decision before it’s made and seriously consider what it may mean for the future. Jesus called it “counting the cost”.

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish’.” Luke 14:28
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There are mistakes and then MISTAKES of UNUSUAL SIZE (apologies to The Princess Bride), like these historical disasters:

Custer’s Last Stand, a big miscalculation causing a mass slaughter of American Calvary;

Germany’s funding of communist Vladimar Lenin before the Russian Revolution allowed him to start & win the Communist Revolution causing the Cold War, killing millions.

The Titanic sinking- could have been avoided by the captain simply paying attention to the weather report and heeding ice warnings from other ships. Pride in the maiden voyage of a supposedly “unsinkable” ship was the biggest factor here. Pride blinds us to the truth.

Neville Chamberlain’s coddling of Hitler- emboldening him to start WWII,causing 50+ million deaths;

Ford building the Edsel- No one bought it! A total disaster costing $2Billion in adjusted dollars;

Bad equipment causing the meltdown at Chernobyl, a nuclear disaster costing $720 billion USD & making thousands of acres uninhabitable.
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Most huge mistakes are clear as they are happening but many blindly ignore them to their peril.Pride is the #1 cause of most big mistakes. A mistake made only once is just a mistake, but to repeat it makes it not a mistake but a choice. The important thing to do is to learn from any and all mistakes and don’t go ‘round the mountain over and over like Israel did!