One of the most difficult things in being (or trying to be) a Christian is in Learning from Mistakes and Failures that occur in our lives so often. Roger’s lessons today begin with a LOT of history of nations, leaders, businesses, and inventors making mistakes. Some simply don’t pay attention to things that warn them of trouble, only to pay dearly for the oversight. Others have opportunities laid at their feet only to kick them aside supposing they are worthless and learning the error of those decisions later. Finally is failure, the word that often means trying to do something the right way and often not coming close to success.

The first lesson is heavy on words but insightful from a historical perspective. The second lesson switches from looking at secular history for mistakes and failures to looking at some of the great leaders of the Bible and how they really blow it at times.

The takeaway from all these examples is that failure is not the end-all, but rather should be treated as a lesson (or more often lessons). As we try to be the Christians God and Christ want us to be, we fail and will never been fully successful. But what we need to do is to grow, reduce the mistakes, take advantage of opportunities, and avoid failure. This can only be done by staying close to God, Christ, and the instructions of the New Testament.

Recordings of both lessons as well as slides are below….

Learning from Mistakes and Failures – Starnes, lesson 1

Learning from Mistakes and Failures – Starnes, lesson 2

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A good portion of the outlines for these lessons comes from the following websites. Note the views and/or opinions of both sites may not reflect the views and/or opinions of the speaker or the Waynesville congregation but were very useful for the lessons. theclever.com/the-20-biggest-human-mistakes-in-history/ and jesusfilm.org/blog-and-stories/is-failure-fatal.html