Devotional: Rebound

One of my first loves in children’s ministry is teaching in the classroom. A few years ago I was teaching the second graders on Wednesday nights. One night we were learning about what you will be teaching this weekend, learning from our mistakes. I went around the room and asked the class if they had ever made a mistake and what they learned from it. All of the kids were giving some great answers, except for one. I asked him what kind of mistakes he had made before and he told me that he never made mistakes, ever. Of course I know that everyone makes mistakes so I was trying to give him some ideas of mistakes that a kid would make. “Have you ever told a lie?” I asked, and his response was no. I kept on prodding with different questions and to each one his reply was no. Finally after about five minutes he finally revealed that one time he didn’t get up from watching TV to clean his bedroom. Now I could finally take this moment and teach him about learning from his mistake, I was excited of his confession. I asked him what happened when he didn’t clean his room and he told me that his dad spanked him for that. Now I knew this was the moment where he would get it, I looked at him in the eyes and asked him what he learned from that experience. He looked back at me and loudly exclaimed “NOTHING!” How could this be? Everything was right there in front of him. He was asked to do a chore, did not do it and was disciplined for it. Yet, he learned nothing.

Do we learn from our mistakes? Has God been bringing discipline in your life only to have had you learn nothing from your mistakes? One of my favorite definitions for insanity is “doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.” Nobody is perfect, that is clear, but the time has come for us to stop blaming others for our mistakes and grow from them. Nobody is truly a failure unless they don’t learn from their mistakes. This week think about the mistakes you have made in the past and what you have learned from them. My guess is that you are not the same person now as you were then. I want to encourage you this week to not get so down on yourself when you mess up, but to be always ready to rebound that ball in life.

Much Love, Ryan.