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Stop Hiding Your Mistakes

                If you are job hunting in the future, do not be surprised if you are asked to submit two resumes: a traditional one that lists your accomplishments and a second one that lists your failures.  To a society that spends a lot of time bragging about itself, a resume of mistakes may seem like a silly idea, but we usually learn a lot more from failure than we do from success.  As well, the ability to deal with disappointment and to adapt to unfavourable circumstances is a valuable skill-set.  Therefore, employers are wanting to hear about a person’s full range of experience, rather than just the shiny, cleaned up versions of themselves that show up on the traditional resumes.
                That sort of thinking and honestly would go a long way to helping the church as well.   Unfortunately, a quick look at all the smiling faces on any given Sunday morning would make it hard to believe that anyone struggles with anything.  Too often, we only see a fake, cleaned up version of one another and this is causing the church to lose one of its most important messages: Repent!
                To repent simply means “to turn around” or “to go a different direction”.  It is such an important concept, that it is the very first word Jesus says when he starts teaching: “Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is near!” (Matthew 4:17).  In fact, Jesus’ whole job was to call “sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32).  The disciples, in turn, “preached that people should repent” (Mark 6:12).  Rather than hide our struggles, scripture says that Christians ought to, “Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other” (James 5:16). 
                These days, because everyone is pretending to be perfect, it seems that no one repents of anything, but that is wrong!  Repentance is not a one-time thing that you did forty years ago when you were baptized and never think about again.  Rather, it is an on-going attitude that constantly allows us to get back on course and to help one another.
                Churches will become more effective when we stop pretending to be something we are not and admit our need for God’s power and his grace.  When we understand that mistakes are part of the growth process, we will acknowledge them, learn the lessons that they teach and go a different direction.
                After all, Jesus came to turn us around. 

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