How quickly do you learn from your mistakes?
Some lessons are tough, and sometimes they're expensive. There’s a saying that until you learn from your mistakes, you’ll keep repeating them, and I think there's a lot of truth in that.
I enjoy stock investing, and when you invest, you can learn some expensive lessons if you’re not careful. You make a decision that seemed right at the time, maybe you ignored something you should have paid attention to, and then later you realize that mistake cost you. When that happens, you hope you learn the lesson quickly, because you definitely don’t want to keep paying for the same mistake over and over again.
That made me think about how good God is to give us His Word. He has filled Scripture with wisdom, instruction, correction, and even examples from the lives of people who came before us. We don’t have to figure everything out the hard way. God is kind enough to teach us, warn us, and show us the better path.
The problem is, even with all of that wisdom available to me, I can still want to follow what seems right in my own mind. I can still trust my feelings, my instincts, or my own plan more than I trust what God has already said.
But just like investing in a bad company is a bad idea, listening to anything above God’s instruction is going to cost me.
Proverbs 12:1 says, "Whoever loves instruction loves knowledge, but he who hates correction and reproof is simple-minded."
That is a pretty direct verse, but I probably need direct sometimes. Loving instruction means I am willing to be taught. It means I am willing to be corrected. It means I would rather have God show me the truth now than keep repeating the same mistakes later.
God’s instructions are not there to hold me back. They are there to save me from paths that look right but lead to pain. So I want to be someone who loves His instruction, listens quickly, and lets His wisdom shape the way I live.