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Q. What lessons can we learn from our checkered pasts?

A.Human nature seems to require all of us to make our own mistakes. After living more than half a century and making more than my share of blunders, I've learned that …

• Every action has a consequence—some good, some bad. Some poor decisions lead to painful but temporary embarrassments, while others have permanent, life-altering consequences. Although God always stands ready to forgive our sinful mistakes, not even forgiveness can change the past.
• Every experience—good or bad—can be redeemed. God has a long history of redeeming our failures, turning our worst blunders into opportunities for personal growth and spiritual development. Whatever your failures, you need not despair. With God's help you can overcome them.
• Every mistake can become a lesson learned. What a thought! I can learn from this tragic experience. It need not destroy me. This pain, this awful, unrelenting pain, can be made an ally. Yes, failure is a harsh teacher, but her very harshness sensitizes us to lessons we might otherwise never learn.
• God always forgives. The roll call of the redeemed is filled with scoundrels and con men, philanderers and prostitutes, drunks and derelicts, not to mention ordinary sinners like you and me. For as James S. Stewart, the Scottish preacher, said, "There is nothing in heaven or earth so dogged and determined and stubborn and persistent as the grace [of God] that wills to save!"

Richard Exley, a conference speaker, is author of Strength for the Storm.

Adapted from: Strength for the Storm (Nelson, 1999) by permission.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.

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Prayer for the Week

Thank you, Jesus, for dying in my place, so that the Father could pardon a rebel like me.

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