The Sunday Sermonette – Mistakes. (Originally published April 30, 2023)

Richard Jones, a naval engineer, was trying to invent a meter using tension springs to monitor power on maritime battleships. One of the springs fell off a table but bounced around the room. From this mistake, the Slinky was born.

Working for the 3M Laboratories, Spencer Silver was trying to invent a strong adhesive but ended up with something weaker. It stuck to objects but could be pulled off easily without leaving any residue. From this mistake, Post-It-Notes was born.

While working on a version of the telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell, a famed inventor, accidentally loosened a wire wound around a transmitter and plucked it. From this mistake, the telephone was born.

People make mistakes every day. Some change our world for good, and some don’t. On a personal level, though, our bad mistakes sometimes get lodged in the backwaters of our minds, leaving us to ask—Am I a mistake? Why are life’s battles so tricky? Why do I feel so ugly and broken inside? Why do I destroy everything I touch? Lose friends, people I love? Perhaps, you’ve wanted to shake a fist at Heaven and yell—Hey, God! Did you mess up creating me? Did you misread the recipe for my creation? Just tell me…am I a mistake?

Dear FB family and friends, that’s absurd! Why? Because God created you in His image. He created you with love, paying attention to your every detail, from your body’s exterior architecture to your interior’s intricate clockwork. And before you were born, while you were still in your dear mother’s womb, God knew you, what you would be, your purpose, and where life would take you.

When life gets tough and makes no sense, it’s easy to think you’re a mistake. To think God has abandoned you because you are a mistake. To doubt your purpose in this life. To doubt that you’ll ever get through the mess you’re facing. It’s so easy to get caught up in a cycle of disbelief, mistrust, anger, and loneliness, convincing yourself that no one cares for you—a mistake walking life’s roads alone.

But God cares!

God doesn’t make mistakes. No matter how often you falter or fail or what the list of wrongs in your life is, He won’t regard you as less than something perfectly created. He’s not going to disown you or stop touching you with His grace, His mercy, His forgiveness, or His love.

He will forever love you because you are His, even if, at times, you fail to honor Him. And He has loved you since you were born because you were everything He imagined and more.

Ponder this and go forth.