45 Sermon Illustrations on Mistakes

General Collin Powell occasionally cited this passage from Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural:

"I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against the errors of others, who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts."

If 99.9% were good enough then:

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* 12 newborns would be given to the wrong parents daily.

* 114,500 mismatched pairs of shoes would be shipped per year.

* 18,322 pieces of mail would be mishandled per hour.

* 2,000,000 documents would be lost by the IRS this year. (That's possible))

* 2.5 million books would be shipped with the wrong covers.

* Two planes landing at Chicago's O'Hare airport would be unsafe every day.

* 315 entries in Webster's Dictionary would be misspelled.

* 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions would be written per year.

* 103,260 income tax returns would be processed incorrectly per year.

* 5.5 million cases of soft drinks produced would be flat.

* 291 pacemaker operations would be performed incorrectly.

* A typical day would be 24 hours long (give or take 86.4 seconds).

* 880,000 credit cards in circulation would turn out to have incorrect cardholder information on their magnetic strips.

In the Summer of 1994 Columbian soccer star Andres Escobar accidentally knocked the ball past his goalie into his own team's net, giving the United States a 1-0 lead over the heavily favored Columbians. The U.S. went on to win 2-1 in a huge upset. Columbia was eliminated from the World Cup. A few days later, at a bar outside of Medellin, Columbia, Andres Escobar was murdered in what police called "an execution." Just before he shot Escobar, one of the assailants reportedly said, "Thanks for the goal."

There's a story of a monastery perched high on a cliff. The only way to reach the monastery is in a basket suspended from a rope. Visitors are pulled up by several monks, who pulled and tugged with all their strength. The ride up the cliff in that basket must be terrifying.

One tourist became very nervous about half-way up after noticing the rope was frayed. In a trembling voice he asked a monk in the basket with him, "How often is the rope changed?" The monk thought for a moment and answered brusquely, "Every time it breaks."

Many approach their next life in the same way these monks approach rope maintenance - don't fix it till you've used up all the life left in the first one! But then it's too late!

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[Adapted from "Old Rope"; © 1999 Jokes EveryDay - www.jokeseveryday.com; message ID: 2448568.]

Source/Attribution: John Gillmartin

"Never confuse a single mistake with a final mistake."

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 – 1940)

Writer

Cited in BITS & PIECES

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"Learn from the mistakes of others – you can never live long enough to make them all yourself."

Cited in The Best of BITS & PIECES

(sometimes atributed to Eleanor Roosevelt)

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

Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Poet

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"Smart people learn from their own mistakes.

Smarter people learn from the mistakes of others."

Cited in BITS & PIECES

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"An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field."

Niels Bohr (1885 - 1962)

Physicist and Nobel laureate

Cited in BITS & PIECES

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"The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does."

Herbert Prochnow

Experience may be the best teacher, but sometimes it is the most costly! Better sometimes to learn from other's experience. Martin R. DeHaan II tells of being in the first grade and watching a classmate, at the prodding of another student, stick his tongue to an iron bar on a bitterly cold day. Kid panicked and bled all over the place. Martin DeHaan said he decided right then he would never do what his classmate had done!

Have you ever wondered who Murphy fellow was? Edward A. Murphy, Jr., born in 1917, was a rocket-sled engineer, testing human acceleration tolerances for the United States Air Force in 1949. He experimented with a set of 16 accelerometers mounted to different parts of the subject’s body. There were exactly two ways each sensor could be glued to its mount. Ironically, somebody managed to install all 16 the wrong way around.

Thus, Murphy made this statement:

“If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways

can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.”

A few days later, one of his test subjects, Major John P. Stapp, quoted Murphy’s ominous statement to the press. Later, in 1958 it landed in Webster’s Dictionary — but misquoted:

“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Or, “Anything that can go

wrong, will.”

Ironically, although that phrase became famous as Murphy’s Law, it really should be attributed to “Finagle’s Law of Dynamic Negatives.” Finagle’s Law was popularized by science fiction author Larry Niven in several stories he wrote depicting a frontier culture of asteroid miners; this “Belter” culture professed a religion and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle and his mad prophet Murphy.

Whether you believe in Murphy’s Law or not, many laugh or take serious this pessimistic view that if things can go wrong, will go wrong. Ill-fated glitches, doomed chaos, hapless misadventure have either been avoided via serendipity or been judged because of Murphy’s Law. And it doesn’t take much of a Murphy to postulate and hypothesize that in real life, taking reckless ventures and harebrained gambles will not pay off–something will probably go wrong.

Yet God does give us perfect comfort in the fact that if we give our lives in complete wholeness and service to Him, ill luck and misfortune will be reversed. No longer will Murphy’s Law hang ominously, like a portentous blaze of volcanic fireworks. Putting our faith and trust in God will allow Him to underscore His assurance that “if things can go wrong, He will be there to take us through.” An interesting verse is found in Psalm 118:18 which reminds us that even though things can go awry and unseemly, God will make sure that He will be there. Yes, that is God’s Law, “When things go wrong, He will see us through.”

A suggested prayer:

“God, so very often I take this futile attitude that if things go wrong, they will. I am becoming aware that You understand how I feel and I long to take my pessimism and replace it with Your goodness. I am sorry for the hurts I have caused You. I thank You for Your law that if things go wrong, You will see us through. Take my life and let it be yours. Amen.”

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #10826]

It has gone down as one of the greatest baseball games ever! 6th game of 1986 American League championship series. California Angels ..... Boston Red Sox. California led series 3 games to 2 (best of 7).

Top of 9th, Angels (at home) 1-run lead; Boston--2 outs. Donnie Moore had 2 strikes on Dave Henderson.

Moore & Angels one pitch away from World Series! Not to be ... Henderson hit homer that tied; Boston went

on to win; won 7th game and entered the World Series. To reach that point again, California would have to

start from scratch (contracts, trng. camp, pre-season, 162 games, etc.) On July 18, 1989 Donnie Moore committed suicide; never able to forget that one pitch.

Several years ago, I heard the story of Larry Walters, a 33-year-old man who decided he wanted to see his neighborhood from a new perspective. He went down to the local army surplus store one morning and bought forty-five used weather balloons. That afternoon he strapped himself into a lawn chair, to which several of his friends tied the now helium-filled balloons. He took along a six-pack of beer, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and a BB gun, figuring he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land.

Walters, who assumed the balloons would lift him about 100 feet in the air, was caught off guard when the chair soared more than 11,000 feet into the sky -- smack into the middle of the air traffic pattern at Los Angeles International Airport. Too frightened to shoot any of the balloons, he stayed airborne for more than two hours, forcing the airport to shut down its runways for much of the afternoon, causing long delays in flights from across the country. Soon after he was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three questions:

"Where you scared?"

"Yes."

"Would you do it again?"

"No."

"Why did you do it?"

"Because," he said, "you can't just sit there."

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Leadership, Summer 1993, Page 35

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Another version:

Larry was a truck driver, but his lifelong dream was to fly. When he graduated from high school, he joined the Air Force in hopes of becoming a pilot. Unfortunately, poor eyesight disqualified him. So when he finally left the service, he had to satisfy himself with watching others fly the fighter jets that crisscrossed the skies over his backyard. As he sat there in his lawn chair, he dreamed about the magic of flying.

Then one day, Larry Walters got an idea. He went down to the local army-navy surplus store and bought a tank of helium and forty-five weather balloons. These were not your brightly colored party balloons, these were heavy-duty spheres measuring more than four feet across when fully inflated.

Back in his yard, Larry used straps to attach the balloons to his lawn chair, the kind you might have in your own back yard. He anchored the chair to the bumper of his jeep and inflated the balloons with helium. Then he packed some sandwiches and drinks and loaded a BB gun, figuring he could pop a few of those balloons when it was time to return to earth.

His preparations complete, Larry Walters sat in his chair and cut the anchoring cord. His plan was that after he enjoyed some flying time to lazily float back down to earth. But things didn't quite work out that way.

When Larry cut the cord, he didn't float lazily up; he shot up as if fired from a cannon! Nor did he go up a couple hundred feet. He climbed and climbed until he finally leveled off at eleven thousand feet! At that height, he could hardly risk deflating any of the balloons, let he unbalance the load and really experience flying! So he stayed up there, sailing around for fourteen hours, totally at a loss as to how to get down.

Eventually, Larry drifted into the approach corridor for Los Angeles International Airport. A Pan Am pilot radioed the tower and told the air traffic controller that he had just passed a guy in a lawn chair at eleven thousand feet who had a gun in his lap.

Eventually, a Navy helicopter dropped a rescue line over Larry, and gradually hauled him back to earth. As soon as Larry hit the ground, he was arrested. But as he was being led away in handcuffs, a television reporter called out, "Mr. Walters, why'd you do it?" Larry stopped, eyed the man, then replied nonchalantly, "A man can't just sit around."

Larry's statement has a message for us. We can not sit around any longer. We need to get out of our comfort zone and go make a difference in the lives of others.

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Stories For The Heart

Alice Gray, Multnomah, pp. 99-100.

[see also HolwickID #1677]

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Ivory soap was invented by accident! Too many bubbles got into a batch of soap and it floated. Users loved it, and the accident is still marketed as Ivory Soap. (From Marlene LeFever, Creative Teaching, Chicago: David C. Cook, 1985, p. 29)

The following "true story" speaks a lot about the quality of Japanese

products and their quality standards. Supposedly, they're still laughing

about this at IBM.

It seems the computer giant decided to have some parts manufactured in

Japan as a trial project. In the specifications, they set out that they

will accept three defective parts per 10,000.

When the delivery came in there was an accompanying letter: "We, Japanese

people, had a hard time understanding North American business practices.

But the three defective parts per 10,000 have been separately manufactured

and have been included in the consignment. Hope this pleases you."

This speaks a lot about the quality of Japanese products and their standards:

They're still laughing about this at IBM. Apparently the computer giant decided to have some parts manufactured in Japan as a trial project. In the specifications, they stated that they will only accept three defective parts per 10,000.

When the delivery came in there was an accompanying letter. It said, "We Japanese had a hard time understanding North American business practices. But the three defective parts per 10,000 have been separately manufactured and have been included in the consignment. Hope this pleases you."

"Building a deck is NOT as hard as you think! I've watched TV personality Bob Vila do it many times, and he is a regular 'do-it-yourselfer' just like you, except that he has knowledge, skill, an unlimited budget and a large staff of experts."

-- Dave Barry

"The good times we put in our pocket. The hard times we put into our heart."

-- Les Brown

"One mistake will never kill you. The same mistake over and over again will."

-- Harvey Mackay

"Mistakes are painful when they happen, but years later a collection of mistakes is what is called experience."

-- Denis Waitley

"You must learn from your past mistakes, but not lean on your past successes."

-- Denis Waitley

"We can chart our future clearly and wisely only when we know the path which has led to the present."

-- Adlai E. Stevenson

"Time is the wisest counselor."

-- Pericles

"We enjoy warmth because we have been cold. We appreciate light because we have been in darkness. By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sadness."

-- David L. Weatherford

"A wise person learns by the experience of others. An ordinary person learns by his or her own experience. A fool learns by nobody's experience."

-- (unknown)

"Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you."

-- Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), writer

"We learn from experience that not everything which is incredible is untrue."

-- Jean-Francois-Paul-Gondi de Retz (c. 1614-1679), clergyman and politician

"We learn from experience that we never learn from experience."

-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), cited in BITS & PIECES

"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."

-- John Wooden, cited in The Best of...BITS & PIECES

"Experience ... is simply the name we give our mistakes."

-- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), writer

"Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don't."

-- Pete Seeger, singer and composer

"The time for extracting a lesson from history is ever at hand for those who are wise."

-- Demosthenes (384-322 B.C.), orator and statesman, B&P 8/19/02

"Experience is not what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you."

-- Aldous Huxley

"The years teach us much the days never knew."

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, QFTM 2/29/04

*

Look, I wish I had all the time in the world to get places. Usually, that is just not possible. I'm moving pretty fast - sometimes too fast. Recently, I was on the verge of being late, and I was driving in a very unfamiliar place. You probably know the feeling of trying to follow directions to a new place, you're looking for your turn, and suddenly you're driving a long way without seeing your turn. This was one of those days for me. And the reason I was driving so far was because I had missed the place I was supposed to turn. And I missed it because I was just going too fast. So, of course, it actually took me longer to get where I was supposed to be.

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "Speeding Past the Right Road."

Because I've missed way too many roads in my life because I was going too fast to see them, I was arrested the other day - uh, not by a police officer, but by a Bible verse. It's our word for today from the Word of God. Proverbs 19:2 says, "It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way." Now, how many times have you and I missed the way because we were being too hasty?

I remember in high school when they were teaching us to type, we weren't just graded on how many words per minute we could type. All that counted was the number of correct words per minute. You know, speed isn't all that matters in life. Getting it right matters more! And speed often diminishes accuracy ... especially in making wise choices. You may, in fact, be reaping right now the unpleasant harvest of some hasty decisions you made in the past. You were going so fast that you sped right past the right road. So, let's learn from those mistakes - and slow down and get it right!

Moving fast works against some key factors in making decisions that we won't regret later on. Like time to pray, for example. In our haste to get things out of the way, we often forget to check with heaven. King Jehoshaphat gave this wise counsel to King Ahab on the eve of a battle he should have never been involved in - he said, "First, seek the counsel of the Lord." (1 Kings 22:5) We all ought to have that hanging in some prominent place in front of us all day long! By the way, Ahab died in that battle that day. We're moving way too fast when we're in too much of a hurry to slow down and listen to the Lord.

Speeding also means we tend to neglect getting all the facts. Next to this "don't be hasty and miss the way" verse in my Bible, I've written these words - "Do your homework!" Now often, slowing down to assess all the available information - including the future ramifications of various options - can save us a lot of grief. Now another factor we speed by is taking time to seek Godly advice. Proverbs 20:18 counsels us to "make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain guidance." Talk to others who've been there; get the objectivity of someone who follows the Lord and who isn't so close to your situation.

All these wise steps, though, take some time - and if you're moving too fast, you're going to miss the steps that make for wise choices - and happy endings. By the way, there's another danger in going too fast - you have a tendency to run over people. And you may have left some hit-and-run victims in your wake - you ran over them on your way to your wonderful goal.

Take it from a man who has too often missed the way that he should have gone. When you're moving too fast ... well, you tend to make a lot of mistakes. And you often end up going very fast - in the wrong direction!

________________

Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"

*

My friend Trisha's eyes filled with tears. Over the summer, she had discovered that her 15-year-old son, Skip, was experimenting with alcohol and cigarettes. She had tried talking to him, grounding him, and forbidding him to go out with a certain group of friends, but those restrictions weren't making much of an impact on him.

"What's the most important thing to Skip?" I asked. "Football," she answered without hesitation. Then I had a brainstorm. "Doesn't Skip have to sign a contract with the football coach that says he will not drink or smoke or use drugs while he's on the football team? And don't you, as parents, have to sign it, too?" Trisha nodded. "What about telling him that if he drinks or smokes, you'll inform his coach?" Trisha was silent. "I'm not quite sure I could turn him in," she said. "He'd be kicked off the team. I know I should, but I don't know if I could."

Allowing our children to experience the consequences of their actions is one of the hardest decisions parents make. But while every parent has an arsenal of discipline techniques to draw from, experts agree that allowing logical, age-appropriate consequences can solve most disciplinary problems.

"For everything we do in life, there are consequences," writes child psychiatrist Dale M. Jacobs, in "Zip Your Lips" (Element). "If we don't pay the electric bill, our lights will be turned off. If we do a job poorly, or don't show up, we may be fired. Parents need to allow children to experience the consequences of their choices in order to learn responsibility."

For Skip, being kicked off the team may teach him more than his mom's words or actions. Not only will Skip learn that his decision to smoke and drink has negative results, he will see that his parents are fully committed to dealing with him seriously. The next time he's tempted to go against their wishes, he'll know that doing so will result in more negative consequences.

It's important to point out that consequences are not the same as punishment. By grounding and restricting Skip, Trisha was trying to punish him. But punishment deals with past misdeeds, not future behavior. Biblically, the word punishment is not even tied to parenting. Discipline is the word the Bible attaches to good parenting; its definition is to correct behavior and instruct for the future.

The concept of logical consequences also mirrors how God parents us. In essence, it is a respect for an individual's free will, rather than an attempt to control another person. Best-selling author Philip Yancey calls this aspect of God "the miracle of restraint." In "The Jesus I Never Knew" (Zondervan) he writes, "I never sense Jesus twisting a person's arm. Rather, he stated the consequences of a choice, then threw the decision back to the other party." After the Fall, God's discipline of Adam and Eve is based on the consequences of their actions.

Jay Kesler, author of "Emotionally Healthy Teenagers" (Word), applies this aspect of God to parenting when he writes, "In all areas of God's creation, He allows His creatures to mature and function on their own. To participate with God in His creation we must, therefore, prepare our children for independence, for that is consistent with His plan. In a sense, we are carrying out His will and His intentions when we do so."

Using consequences with children is an effective way to shape their behavior. But it takes some thought to make consequences work.

GET SMART ABOUT CHILD DEVELOPMENT

For consequences to mean something to your children, you need to know what your child can and can't understand. Education consultant Kim Salch says, "If you're feeling frustrated about an unwanted behavior, be sure that your expectations are age-appropriate." You can read about child development, observe other kids, ask seasoned parents for advice, or find a mentor to figure out what your child is ready for. Look for patterns in your child's behavior. What triggers the problem? Hunger? Fatigue? Solve the problem and you may change the behavior.

Looking back, I regret that I sometimes handled situations as behavioral rather than developmental. When my then-4-year-old suddenly hated going to sleep, I reacted to these nighttime upsets with my own upset rather than realizing it was part of a stage. She grew out of that stage, but I still feel sorry that I didn't think of another approach, such as a longer bedtime story or extra snuggling. I expected too much, too soon.

MAKE SURE THE TIME IS RIGHT

While it might seem like young children should be protected from the results of their mistakes, experts say that you can use consequences sooner than you might expect. Salch says, "Learning about an environment begins when a baby becomes mobile. Mom teaches a crawling baby what 'hot' means by touching the dishwasher after the dry cycle, when it's warm but not so hot that it could burn a little finger. By the time he's walking, he won't touch a hot stovetop. It's a process that evolves as a child grows: as behaviors become evident, so do consequences."

With toddlers and preschoolers, experienced teacher Carol Grieb uses everyday situations to show children the results of their behavior. "When a child grabs something from another child and a scuffle results, I will say, 'Look! See what happens when you don't ask for the toy?'"

The sooner you practice allowing your child to experience logical consequences, the better for all. When my friend Gail's 3-year-old daughter insisted on wearing pajamas to church, Gail decided to let her wear them. "I've read about the need for 3-year-olds to assert their independence, so I thought, why not? If it's that important to her, I can swallow my pride for one Sunday." After one week, Gail's daughter decided it wasn't that much fun to wear pajamas to church after all. Choices are powerful.

SET CLEAR EXPECTATIONS

For children to learn from consequences, parents need to make sure children know exactly what behaviors are acceptable and what the results will be for misbehavior. Provide simple, straightforward expectations so that even a young child can understand. Always keep in mind that what's clear to you may not be clear to your kids. Don't leave any questions in their minds as to how you'll react.

My friend Nancy thinks about consequences for her child's behavior ahead of time so she's prepared with the appropriate response when she needs it. She avoids head-on conflicts with her kids by giving them a lot of choices. She might say, "Patrick, I need you to pick up your toys before dinner. You can do it now or after you finish your game. If they're not picked up by dinner, then they'll be put away for a few days. It's up to you." Nancy also makes deals with her kids. Her children get what they want after they fulfill their responsibilities. "Yes, you can watch TV when your homework is done." "You can use the phone when your room is cleaned up." Obligations come first.

MAKE LOGICAL CONNECTIONS

The whole idea behind logical consequences is that the consequence is a clear, natural result of the behavior. In most cases, you won't have to work too hard to figure out the logical consequence of your child's behavior.

One 10-year-old I know began to surprise her mom, Kerry, with a newly acquired fondness for "back talk." Kerry noticed a pattern of sass each time Alison played with a certain friend. In a calm, respectful way, Kerry explained that sarcasm and rudeness were unacceptable in their home. She said that Alison would not be allowed to invite this playmate over until she could learn to control her own mouth. Kerry didn't ban or blame this friend. She gave Alison the responsibility to watch her attitude or experience the consequences.

DON'T BE A RESCUER

Naturally, parents want to protect their children from unhappiness. But when we start excusing them from their homework, driving to drop things off at school, or paying their speeding tickets, we aren't doing them any favors, especially as they prepare to head out into the real world, where they'll have to pay a higher price for their mistakes.

One mom I know finally realized she was going to have to let her kids face the consequences of their forgetfulness, be it a hungry tummy or detention for a missed assignment. When she stopped rescuing them and refused to deliver their lunches and assignments, they became more organized and responsible. I give my kids one "grace delivery" of a forgotten lunch or homework per quarter. I want them to realize that occasional mistakes are okay, and helping each other is part of being in a family, but that they are old enough to take care of these things.

BE WILLING TO GET TOUGH

We've always told our kids that if we can trust them in small things, then we'll be able to trust them in big things. A few months ago, I caught my teenage son in a lie. A big lie. There was no doubt that he was guilty; I had concrete evidence. After discussing the issue with my husband, we decided to withhold our son's driver's license for six months, even though he was prepared to take the test and eager for his license. We explained that his lie was a violation of our trust, and as a result, we couldn't trust him with our car, at least not yet.

This was a painful experience for all of us, but holding back his driving freedom was the right consequence, and the impact on him has been powerful. In fact, I've seen a great deal of maturing in him because of this consequence. He knows we mean what we say, and he knows our expectations of trust. So promises Proverbs 29:17: "Discipline your son, and he will give you peace; he will bring delight to your soul." Independence and responsibility go hand in hand. You can't give one without the other.

USE POSITIVE CONSEQUENCES, TOO

Consequences don't have to be negative. Research has shown that people learn faster when they are rewarded for their behavior than when the outcome is unpleasant. When my friend Lisa felt exasperated with her 5-year-old daughter's whining, she used positive consequences. She told Sara that if she could get through three mornings in a row without whining, she would get her favorite dinner. It worked! Figure out what privileges motivate your kids and use them to reinforce good choices.

Kids never stop making mistakes - old ones, new ones, messy ones, dangerous ones, funny ones, and hurtful ones. They have to learn that it's natural to make mistakes, but there are consequences to be paid. There's no pat formula for raising healthy and balanced kids, but if they grow up with an awareness of consequences for their behavior, with freedom to make choices and learn from them, they'll have a solid foundation to stand on.

__________________________

Suzanne Woods Fisher is a member of the CPT Advisory Board and the mother of four. She lives in California.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Christian Parenting Today magazine. Christian Parenting Today, January/February 2002, Vol. 14, No. 3, Page 26

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Their hearts were in the right place.

Workers in Fort Wayne, Indiana, wanted to improve road safety this winter, so they sprayed a magnesium chloride compound on three local bridges. Once dry, the chemical improves winter traction, helping to prevent accidents. But while wet, it has the consistency of “baby oil,” according to a local police officer. And as you’ve probably already guessed, the highway workers forgot to allow time for it to dry before opening the bridges for traffic.

Soon, the bridges (now covered in the slick substance) began to resemble a bad day at the demolition derby, with cars sliding everywhere. Workers quickly closed the bridges, but not before multiple cars piled up. It was a dark day for highway safety efforts in the Midwest.

How important is timing? Last year Dodge cars were advertised with the slogan, “Timing is Everything,” and that’s not far off.

Most smart men quickly figure out that there is a right time and a wrong time to talk to their wives about problems at home. Most employees quickly learn that there is a right time and a wrong time to talk to their boss about more pay or vacation time. Most ministers find out that there is a right time and a wrong time to bring up certain subjects in their preaching. This doesn’t mean they avoid difficult subjects; rather they choose the smartest time to deal with them. Bad timing can turn a sure hit into a complete miss; good timing can help turn a miss into a hit.

Sometimes bad timing can’t be avoided. But more often than not, we create our own timing problem because we are impatient. We want things fixed and we want them fixed NOW. We want our demands met, our needs provided for, our grievances addressed, and we demand immediately. But how often would an hour or a day or two days take care of the problem with less worry and less pain? How often do we spoil a potentially good thing because we are not willing to invest a little time “aging” the idea before we run with it? Sometimes this extra time shows us that the idea is simply wrong, both now and later.

Proverbs 25:11(NCV) says, “The right word spoken at the right time is as beautiful as gold apples in a silver bowl.” In other words, it’s more than what you say; it’s also when you say it that matters.

Choose your words carefully. Consider the timing of your actions. Sometimes a little patience can yield great results.

Sermon. James 1:5

HOW TO AVOID DUMB MISTAKES

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I. What is the dumbest thing you have ever done?

II. Keep it in perspective.

A. Everyone makes mistakes.

B. Don't blow your mistakes out of proportion.

C. Don't ignore them, either.

III. Learn from your mistakes.

A. Mistakes can be educational.

B. Mistakes keep us humble.

IV. Avoid repeating mistakes.

A. Use the wisdom you gain from past failure.

B. Refine your thinking. Proverbs 12:16; 13:16, 14:8,15; 22:3

V. Mistakes remind us of God's grace.

A. He loves failures in spite of themselves.

B. Turn your failures into victory.

Supposing him to have been in the company. — Luke 2:44.

Supposing him to be the gardener. — John 20:15.

The story in Luke is delightfully natural, just the kind of thing that would happen in a crowd of people. Mary and Joseph thought the Lord was with the other children and didn’t worry at first. They thought He was there, and He wasn’t. In the garden Mary Magdalene, on the other hand thought He wasn’t there and He was. We are apt to make mistakes if we build on mere suppositions. — H. K. DOWNIE.

They missed Him not, so He remained behind,

She missed and sought Him, and who seeks will find.

It’s when we’ve learned His absence, He’s revealed.

If we suppose Him here, He’s still concealed. — J.M.S.T.

A note in a Caribbean Airline Travel Guide:

"Just in case you find any mistakes in this magazine, please remember they were put there for a purpose. We try to offer something for everyone. Some people are always looking for mistakes."

John D. Rockefeller built the great Standard Oil Empire. Not surprisingly, Rockefeller was a man who demanded high performance from his company executives. One day, one of those executives made a two-million-dollar mistake.

Word of the man's enormous error quickly spread throughout the executive offices, and the other men began to make themselves scarce. Afraid of Rockefeller's reaction, they didn’t even want to cross his path.

One man didn't have any choice, however, since he had an appointment with the boss. So he straightened his shoulders and tightened his belt and walked into Rockefeller's office.

As he approached the oil monarch's desk, Rockefeller looked up from the piece of paper on which he was writing.

"I guess you've heard about the two million dollar mistake our friend made," he said abruptly.

"Yes," the executive said, expecting Rockefeller to explode.

"Well, I've been sitting here listing all of our friend's good qualities on this sheet of paper, and I've discovered that in the past he has made us many more times the amount he lost for us today by his one mistake. His good points far outweigh this one human error. So I think we ought to forgive him, don't you?"

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The Tale Of The Tardy Oxcart

Charles R. Swindoll, Word, p. 215-216.

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Another version from Wit and Wisdom on 9/16/03:

Many years ago a senior executive of the then Standard Oil company made a wrong decision that cost the company more than $2 million. John D. Rockefeller was then running the firm. On the day the news leaked out most of the executives of the company were finding various ingenious ways of avoiding Mr. Rockefeller, lest his wrath descend on their heads.

There was one exception, however; he was Edward T. Bedford, a partner in the company. Bedford was scheduled to see Rockefeller that day and he kept the appointment, even though he was prepared to listen to a long harangue against the man who made the error in judgment.

When he entered the office the powerful head of the gigantic Standard Oil empire was bent over his desk busily writing with a pencil on a pad of paper. Bedford stood silently, not wishing to interrupt. After a few minutes Rockefeller looked up. “Oh, it's you Bedford,” he said calmly. “I suppose you've heard about our loss?” Bedford said that he had. “I've been thinking it over,” Rockefeller said, “and before I ask the man in to discuss the matter, I've been making some notes.”

Bedford later told the story this way: “Across the top of the page was written, “Points in favor of Mr. _____.” There followed a long list of the man's virtues, including a brief description of how he had helped the company make the right decision on three separate occasions that had earned many times the cost of his recent error.

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Source: Bits & Pieces, September 15, 1994, Copyright (c) Economic Press, Inc http://www2.ragan.com

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There's a story of a monastery perched high on a cliff. The only way to reach the monastery is in a basket suspended from a rope. Visitors are pulled up by several monks, who pulled and tugged with all their strength. The ride up the cliff in that basket must be terrifying.

One tourist became very nervous about half-way up after noticing the rope was frayed. In a trembling voice he asked a monk in the basket with him, "How often is the rope changed?" The monk thought for a moment and answered brusquely, "Every time it breaks."

Many approach their next life in the same way these monks approach rope maintenance - don't fix it till you've used up all the life left in the first one! But then it's too late!

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[Adapted from "Old Rope"; © 1999 Jokes EveryDay - www.jokeseveryday.com; message ID: 2448568.]

Source/Attribution: John Gillmartin

Jimmy Dodd has a special ministry to hurting pastors. He writes of one of his encounters:

It was one of the more memorable conversations of my life. I was standing in the lobby of a Christian college with a dear friend who was suffering through one of the most painful experiences of his life. Approximately twenty years my senior, he was smart, wise, and weathered. He had been through many storms in life, and he had withstood them with patience and grace. And for some reason, tonight was the most difficult.

He had recently learned that one of his daughters had suddenly and unexpectedly run away with a much older man. He was grieving the loss of innocence, the loss of relationship, and the loss of control. Because I had long respected the man as well as his parenting abilities, and despite the agony of the moment, I gently asked the question I was longing to ask. “In light of what has transpired today, if you could do it all over again, what would you do differently in life?”

He bowed his head, silent for several minutes, before he looked at me with tear-filled eyes and said, “If I had to do it all over again, I would repent more ... in front of my children.

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[Previous illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #5006]