Mistakes don’t make you a failure

From The Pastor’s Pen – By Brian Horrobin

Legendary UCLA men’s basketball coach, John Wooden, was known for many statements of wisdom in his 99 years of living.

One key maxim that he lived by was this: “A person can make mistakes, but they are not a failure until they blame others.”

Wooden learned many of his powerful life principles from his father, Joshua.

In his book, ‘My Personal Best’, the famed coach describes the reaction of his father after losing the family farm: “The end came suddenly. Bad vaccination serum killed the hogs, drought stunted the crops, and the bank took the farm. In those days there was no insurance for this kind of trouble, so we lost everything. Those were very hard times for our family, and the Great Depression hadn’t even begun. Through it all, Dad never winced. He laid no blame on the merchant who had sold him the bad serum, didn’t curse the weather, and had no hatred toward the banker. My father had done his best, but things went bad. ‘Blaming, cursing, hating doesn’t help’, he’d say. ‘It hurts you’. His example is deeply imbedded in my mind and, I hope, reflected in my behavior.”

I am guessing that most of the athletes that played basketball under the tutelage of this great coach would say that they saw it in action.

It’s easy to play the blame game when things don’t work out the way we would like in our lives.

We always want someone else to be responsible for the mistakes we make.

Adam blamed Eve for coercing him into eating the forbidden fruit, and then Eve blamed the devil.

But we all know how that worked out, don’t we?

Let’s take responsibility for our actions and not blame others when things go awry.

Instead, let’s confess our faults and ask God to help us move on.

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