Ever heard of a ‘Glorious Mistake?’ 
One of those (often public) mistakes that you thought would be your crowning glory, but left you clothed in shame instead?
An error in judgement whose consequences usually have the capacity to alter the course of the rest of your life. Like having a baby outside wedlock, making a wrong career move or business decision, severing a friendship in a fit of anger or maybe even dating and marrying the wrong person.
I can’t remember how exactly that phrase was coined, but I do believe most of us have one or two of these ‘mistakes’ under our belts. And they are glorious only because of their magnitude (perceived or imagined), and the magnitude of their consequences.
Most of us have a mental ranking of what we consider ‘Big’ sins and ‘Small’ sins. Big sins being things like Murder, Adultery, Abortion, Corporate fraud etc. While Small sins are things like telling a few ‘white lies’ here and there, inflated ego etc. The problem with this type of reasoning is that it makes us feel better about ourselves when our issues are mostly those on the ‘small sins’ list or don’t attract public ridicule.
We feel more righteousness and even justified in pointing out the ills of our friends who are more ‘glorious’ in their mistakes. The truth of the matter is there is none that’s righteous. No, not one. No sin that is bigger than the other, as all sins are at the same level in that they all entail falling short of God’s standard. Whether it a small white lie or it is murder.
What differentiates one sin from the other however, and makes us think others are bigger or smaller than others is the magnitude of the consequences. We reason that a small ‘white lie’ for example will not hurt as much compared to the public scorn that comes with pregnancy outside wedlock. That being said, these are not only the standards we use when we judge other people who sin differently than us, but it is also the standard we use for ourselves when we mess up.
Sometimes we think we are too far gone and what we have done is far too big and unforgivable to be redeemed. Normally if we are the kind of people that are reluctant to extend unconditional forgiveness to others and feel they should pay for their sins, we will tend to be less merciful to ourselves as well when we fall and realise that we are not as ‘Super-human’ as we thought we were.
And so what do you do when you find yourself in the midst of Glorious mistake and it knocks the wind right out of your lungs?
Read on to Part 2 – ‘After We Mess Up’
xoxo
