bible and theology on Learning from Your Mistakes

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for the success of the human species. It enables us to learn from our mistakes and make plans. When the PFC is healthy, we behave consistently in ways that enable ...

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying… that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.

We know mistakes were made.

Failures are divided into two classes — those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.

“Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?”

As soon as we know that we are wrong, we aren’t wrong anymore, since to recognize a belief as false is to stop believing it. Thus we can only say “I was wrong.” Call it the Heisenberg Uncertainty Prin...

Pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.

Over the years, I’ve read about many leaders who failed ethically in their leadership. Can you guess what they had in common? They all thought it could never happen to them. There was a false sense of...

The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.

Gracious God, sometimes I think that I can figure out all the consequences of my decisions. I can become overly impressed with what I perceive to be my strategic vision and analysis. Forgive me for my...

All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner.

Brother Lawrence, a 16th-century Carmelite monk, spent his days scrubbing pots and mending shoes. Largely uneducated, he filled his free time writing letters and notes that, after his death, friends g...

The acknowledgment of our weakness is the first step in repairing our loss.

In Eugene Peterson’s excellent book, Run with Horses, he tells the story of his frustration trying to remove the blade from his lawnmower. He had tried everything and finally his neighbor came over an...

Error, by force of contrast, enhances the triumph of Truth.

Help me, I pray, to be someone who tells the truth, even when that truth has to do with my mistakes, my sins. Help me see myself and my actions clearly. Give me the courage to admit when I’ve done wro...

Failure is a gift. When we are forced to drink the dust of our idols, we can begin to turn our sights toward home.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid aga...

The Necessity of Memory Memory—or, more actively,  remembering , plays an all-important role in our lives. Our culture likes us to focus on  the now, "looking forward rather than looking back&q...

The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.

A person that never climbs will never fall.

Repentance resulting from self-examination is a lifelong endeavor, occasionally surfacing in the public or private act of confession as an act of “courageous memory” in recalling one’s past.

“Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy.”

The search for knowledge can go wrong, not as a result of individual, erroneous judgments or of mistakes creeping in at different points, but because of one single mistake at the beginning… Faith does...

I begin with humility, I act with humility, I end with humility. Humility leads to clarity. Humility leads to an open mind and a forgiving heart. With an open mind and a forgiving heart, I see every p...

Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.

Gracious God, forgive us for the opportunities we’ve wasted. You’ve placed us in the perfect situation to help raise other people up, so they would be equipped to follow you. But we squander those opp...

There’s a difference between good judgment and living in judgment. The trick is to use lots of the first and to go a little lighter on the second.