Never Be Afraid of Making Mistakes

We all make mistakes. Even the Saints made mistakes. The important thing is how we react to them. Is it with anger or a firm resolution to not make the same mistake again?

From Aleteia

By Fr Michael Rennier

Of course we all make mistakes. It’s to be expected. The important thing is how we react.

On balance, my life is probably more a series of mistakes than it is actual good decisions. I feel like I’m constantly blundering about, pretending I know what I’m doing but, deep inside, the truth remains, adamant and firm, that even into middle-age I am still in the process of figuring out exactly who I am, where I’m going, and why I do the things I do. Mistakes are constant. There are the “big” mistakes - the sins, the hasty and thoughtless decisions, the way I pridefully double-down on those hasty decisions and refuse to listen to advice, the arguments I repeatedly start about the same topics, parenting decisions I wish I could take back – and there are the “small” mistakes - the jokes I make that really aren’t funny at all but that I stubbornly keep making, convincing myself I don’t need sunscreen, eating too much ice cream ... and so very many more examples.

In the midst of it all, I’ve somehow managed to make the really vital, big decisions correctly -- the woman I married, starting a family with her, always going to Sunday Mass even when I haven’t felt like it, reading lots of books, asking forgiveness, being willing to change my mind, and, yes, not being afraid of making mistakes.

Because, of course, we all make mistakes. It’s to be expected. The important thing is how we react.

As a highschool chaplain, probably the most frequent question the students ask me is about how to avoid making mistakes when it comes to big life decisions. Our highschool, a Chesterton Academy, is full of bright and inquisitive young people. They worry about which college to attend and what career to pursue. They fret about dating and finding the right spouse. Some of them are pondering going to seminary or into religious life. These are huge decisions and they don’t want to make a mistake.

They ask me how to avoid choosing wrongly because they don’t want to look back years from now with regret. In response, I tell them a little bit of my life story, how I was born a protestant Christian and mistakenly believed all sorts of theological propositions that, in retrospect, harmed my spirituality. Some of those beliefs almost made me stop practicing my faith. I tell them how I finally make a big decision and converted ... but not to Catholicism. I became Episcopalian, went to seminary, and watched helplessly as the religious tradition I’d so confidently decided to join struggled. I became part of arguments within that tradition and despaired over its future. I realized that, perhaps, it was a mistake to think that becoming an Episcopalian pastor was the end of my spiritual journey. Finally, after much wandering, I became Catholic and, by some mysterious grace for which I am ever-thankful, I was ordained a Catholic priest.

God will fix it

I explain my history of mistakes to my students in order to prove something important to them. In spite of all our mistakes, if we don’t give up and, if we’re willing to course-correct, God will make our lives good. He will make them very good. Perhaps we don’t end up in the place we thought we’d end up, or when looking back it seems as though we could’ve taken an easier path. Maybe there were some false starts and wrong steps. Hard lessons had to be learned and forgiveness requested, but in order to keep moving forward, we have to accept the fact that we have made mistakes and almost certainly will make more. We cannot live with regret and we cannot allow the hazy possibility of regret sometime in the future to prevent us from making decisions right here and now.

The only mistake is to give up. If we become paralyzed at the thought of deciding wrongly, that paralysis itself becomes the worst possible mistake if we allow it to take hold. We’ll never have a crystal ball to see the future. We’ll never have every single piece of information required to perfectly navigate every decision. There is always risk. The way I look at it, if God managed to get me (even me) into the right place after all the mistakes and false starts I made, then he can accomplish the same in absolutely anybody. He has a plan for each one of us. Sometimes we’re slow to accept it, or fight against it, or mistakenly identify it. Even if we knowingly decline our intended destiny out of fear or anxiety or pride, that God can change up his initial plan and provide a new one. No mistake is beyond his ability to repair. I’ve experienced this reality time and again. God can take even our mistakes and fold them into his goodness (Isn’t this exactly what he does at the Cross, transform our sins from punishment into the very sacrifice that earns our salvation?).

So what’s our decision-making responsibility – be attentive and patient, pray, get advice, think things through, evaluate the options, and then, act. Don’t be afraid of making a mistake. As long as we all keep moving forward and learn from our mistakes, even if the lessons we must sometimes learn are agonizingly hard, God is moving us, patiently but surely, closer to him, closer to Heaven, and into his promised happiness.