Overcoming Mistakes

Good Morning or Good Afternoon or Good Evening, 

this post should take three minutes to five minutes to read from start to finish. 

How to overcome our mistakes? If you were to ask me that question, I would have answered seeking forgiveness through prayer, encouraging myself to make better choices and do my very best to not do the same mistake again. 

This post is focuses on a Liahona article from July 1981 and it is called, "Overcoming Our Mistakes by Lowell L. Bennion."

"It is not possible to make real change all by ourselves." - Julie B. Beck.

It is so true and we always need to ask Heavenly Father for assistance, guidance, help and support to make real change happen. We also always need to act upon the real change and continue make a habit of changing. I would like to share with you some highlights that I loved during reading the article. 

"... The second suggestion I have is that we ought to realize that no matter what we’ve done in life, no matter what we do, God and Christ still love us just as much as they did before we failed. God and Christ do not separate themselves from the sinner, from the wrongdoer.

I remember a missionary who had just recently returned from the mission field who came into the Institute of Religion when I was there. He had committed a grave mistake that caused him to think that his life was ruined forever. And I said to him, “God loves you just as much today as he did last Thursday,” and he couldn’t believe it.

The thought had never occurred to him. He wept like a child. You know, sometimes we think that God loves us to the extent that we please him, to the extent that we’re good boys and girls, good men and women. Love from God is not earned. It is not merited; if it is, it is justice and reciprocity and reward. 

Love comes from a loving heart, and God’s love is unconditional. And he loves the worst of us and the best of us equally, I believe. We cause him to suffer when we do wrong, when he sees us live our lives in ways that destroy us, and when he sees us hurting other people this must cause him pain.

Therefore, the reason we have to repent is to be able to forgive ourselves and to be able to get in harmony again with the principles and laws of good living. We don’t have to repent to earn God’s love, even though some scriptures portray him as being very angry with the sinner. Others portray him as angry with sin, not with the sinner.

Another way to overcome the past is to make amends. We know when we’ve done wrong, but sometimes we’re afraid to go to those whom we’ve wronged. We are too proud to admit our failures. But when we have the courage to do it, we find that a great reconciliation takes place.

It’s the offended person’s responsibility to react to our efforts to be reconciled. And when we can’t compensate a person for a wrong, when it’s too late or impossible, then we can bless other people. We all belong together in this world. We’re brothers and sisters with the same Eternal Father; we belong to the same human community. There are others we can bless, though we can’t repair the damage we may have done to some of his children."

In your own time, you can read the whole article. Here's the link below, and I hope you will enjoy reading it. www.lds.org/liahona/1981/07/overcoming-our-mistakes

Always try to find time and talk to whoever is making the mistake. Tell them how you feel, be honest and don't be afraid to share with him or her or them this article. It takes a lot of progress of repenting if the mistake doesn't get dealt straight away.

Stay Tuned until next time.