Our experiences in life take us down so many different avenues.  With each avenue, we are required to make constant decisions about that path.  Let me ask you this, in any of those avenues, or decisions in life, have you ever made a mistake?  If you for some reason say no, you must not be alive.  Life’s journey is filled with mistakes.  These are moments where we decide things that did not always produce the best results.  This could be anything, big or small.  If you work, you may make a decision on a project that may have seemed good, but ended up not producing the best results.  You may decide on a school for higher education, but not choose a degree path that really suits what you may want to do in the future.  Those are just minor examples of mistakes that occur in life.  There are countless other examples.

George Bernard Shaw said that , “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”  The mistakes that we make in life are all a part of the growing process and help to make us who we really are.  Notice that I am mentioning mistakes, not regrets.  I live live a life where I avoid having regrets.  Regrets are feelings that prevent us from moving beyond something that may not have gone the way we had hoped.  Mistakes on the other hand are experiences that we learn from and help to improve on the person we are.  They help to define ourselves in the way we bounce back from mistakes.  In any mistake I make, I do my best to learn from what went wrong to not only avoid that mistake again, but to also ensure I can improve on what was done.

Don’t let yourself live a life of regrets where any little mistake holds you down and prevents you from progressing to who you are meant to be.  I’ve been down that road before.  Living with regrets does not do you a bit of good.  As the old saying goes, live and learn.  You learn from the mistakes without regrets and you strive toward coming alive.  We are where we are in life as a result of every step we have taken whether we learn from our mistakes or choose to not learn and live a life of regret.  Our current state is a result of our actions and decisions in life and we are exactly where we are intended to be as a result of those actions.

Don’t let your life be defined by not taking action to learn from your own mistakes in life.  This applies to all 4 pillars of living.  You may have taken a road where you strayed from your faith in Christ.  You may have made mistakes that affect your relationships with your spouse, family, or friends.  You may have made mistakes in the work you do by taking a path that does not suit you or your passions.  Lastly, you may have made mistakes in not living a life that has purpose or that does not always move forward.

No matter which area, there is always opportunity to learn from the mistakes down each pillar of life.  Learning from any mistakes you have made will help you find the path you meant to be on.  You can find your way back to your faith in knowing, that Christ will always take you back.  You can find the ways to mend those relationships in your life.  You can find that work and passion that best suits you.  Finally, you can live a life with purpose that always moves forward.  You can Come Alive!  Everything that happens has a its purpose, good or bad and we have to learn from those times to make the best results from it.  Mistakes are nothing but a learning experience and opportunity.