Learn From Your Past Mistakes

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You’ve heard it said that experience is the best teacher. That is definitely a true statement,…but it can better be said that evaluated experience is the best teacher. It has been my personal evaluated experience that far too many candidates attempting to achieve success don’t remember what they have learned from the past mistakes they personally have made or from the mistakes others have made. Without having learned anything valuable from such mistakes, these ill advised people just continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. What a waste of time, effort, and other resources. What is even worse for these candidates, is that they think that after a few months or years of gaining knowledge through their own experience,…they no longer need to pay attention or make any further adjustments in their behavior because by now they foolishly think that they have learned all that they need to know. As a consequence they close the “doors of education” to their minds and completely stop learning any thing more than what they already know. It is in this weakened mental state that they base their knowledge and understanding. The result…collapse of their platform of performance…i.e. long term failure. How sad a predicament in which they find themselves. The day you stop learning and growing your own mind is the same day that your business and personal activities and growth stop getting any bigger.

As a point of interest, permit me to tell you that if you cannot remember something or a point of fact, or method of performance,…then you never really learned it in the first place. Furthermore, if you never really learned it to begin with, how in the world are you ever going properly perform it or put it into action? Remember, you don’t know that which you don’t know!…and since you don’t know it, you cannot use it.

Increased knowledge, understanding, and wisdom are the keys that unlock the doors to your future growth and its related prosperity.

May I say to you that there is a huge difference between actually knowing something of value and thinking that you know something of great value.

No wise or thinking person enjoys being around a “know-it-all.” These type of folks always have an all-inclusive answer for every thing, every person, or every event that has, is, or will be happening. They are, most usually, ready, willing, and well able to provide their own personal wisdom as applies to any thing that is happening,…whether it is asked for or not.

Successful people, on the other hand, are just the opposite. They prefer instead to allow the other people around them to speak first, and speak most of the time. Successful folks listen to what is being said, then weigh the ideas being expressed by others, and finally evaluate what is being said against their own personal knowledge and experience. Only then do they even think about offering their own insight, knowledge, or wisdom on the issue(s) at hand. Successful people are a rare commodity indeed. That is why they are always able to control their own thoughts, actions, and mouths.

This is not new information to a person who is well read. The material I have been discussing is all laid out within the pages of Holy Scripture,…whether you believe it or not. Let’s take it back to the very beginning,…to where it all started,…at the Creation of mankind,…in the Book of Genesis, Chapter 3, verses 1–7, ESV:

The Fall…The Great Deception

(1) “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the
field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, ‘You shall not
eat of any tree in the garden?’

(2) And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit
of the trees in the garden,

(3) but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is
in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you
die’

(4) But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die.’

(5) For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be
opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’

(6) So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was
to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit
and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was
with her, and he ate.

(7) Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they
were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made
themselves loincloths.”

And so the fall of humankind occurred here on earth (caused from their disobedience to God’s Laws). This Fall took Adam and Eve spiritually to a new place underneath the control of Satan and thereby produced man’s weakness of the flesh. Sin so entered the world. Man’s rebellion against the Creator’s Laws has plagued him forever, after Adam and Eve’s original disobedience. The Fall separated man from God and he was to remain in a separated state until or unless he was reconciled back to God through a developed personal relationship with Him expressed by the process known as becoming “Born-Again.”

The Holy Bible says that foolishness is anything or any activity that separates a person from their Creator God. Your Heavenly Father greatly desires for you to grow closer to Him as you grow up and mature. He wants you to commune and be near to Him in all of your activities. He knows that this is what is best for you. As such He has given you ample instruction as to how to best draw nearer to Him as you live out your life.

A “know-it-all” is, by all measures, someone who foolishly believes he is smarter and wiser than Creator God. His perceived brilliance causes him to expound on any or all areas of life as if he were an expert…even when he is blatantly incorrect in his thinking, understanding, and speech.

God laid down His Laws in the first five books of the Bible. Honesty and integrity were the foundation of all His laws. In the Book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 16, verses 18–20 ESV we are all given precisely what and how He expects any and all people to conduct their thoughts and human affairs. Speaking to His chosen people, the Jews, He gives these forthright instructions:

Justice

(18) “You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that
the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes,
and they shall judge the people with righteous judgement.

(19) You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality,
and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes
of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.

(20) Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may
live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving
you.”

God makes it quite clear that He desires man to use and live with His truths and rules of life rather than expecting or allowing man to come up with a whole new set of his own laws.

In the Book of Proverbs, God emphatically tells us in Chapter 3, verses 7–8 ESV:

(7) “Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.

(8) It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.”

Again in the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 10, verse 1, ESV:

(1) “A wise son makes a glad father,
but a foolish son is a sorrow to his mother.”

God makes it perfectly clear about how to succeed using your own talents and abilities. He tells us in the Book of Proverbs, Chapter 12, verses 14–16, ESV:

(14) “From the fruit of his mouth, a man is satisfied with good,
and the work of a man’s hand comes back to him

(15) The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,
but a wise man listens to advice.”

(16) The vexation of a fool is known at once,
but the prudent ignores an insult.”

Violation of these God-given rules of life automatically places a human being into the category of a fool. That is not a good place to be. But, that is precisely why generation after generation people make the same foolish mistakes that have already been made by their predecessors. May I exhort you to become a wise person, and to continue to grow in your God-given wisdom.

Before you ever make any kind of a personal decision or take any kind of overt action to resolve any issue(s) you are facing,…pause and first ask yourself,…“Is this the wise thing for me to do?” If your answer is “Yes,” then immediately take action. If your answer is “No,” then stop and reconsider your basis of reasoning and make a new and better (wiser) decision.

God truly desires for you to become highly productive and successful in all of your living activities. But he wants you to do it His way and not that of your own.

 

Peace and Love to All of You…………………Poppa Bear

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