In math, as in sports, mistakes count as permanent marks against your score.

These setbacks are always a lag on your performance, and you struggle to overcome them.

But in God’s marking system, our mistakes and failures are viewed differently: minuses aren’t permanent, and can even be turned into plusses.

First of all, God provides forgiveness for our sins through the atonement bought by His Son on the Cross. Our sins are wiped off the record, and we’re given a fresh start.

Secondly, God can even use our mistakes to further His purposes. He can bring good out of the messy parts of our lives.

Examples from the Old and New Testaments show us how:

Probably everyone remembers the story of Jericho from the Bible. The Israelites were finally advancing into the Promised Land, and God had them circle the walled city of Jericho a set number of times. Miraculously, on the final pass the walls collapsed, enabling the Israelites to take the city with ease.

After this resounding victory, they probably thought their next battle, at Ai, would be a cakewalk. But instead it was a devastating defeat for them. Their army was routed and they suffered the loss of dozens of men. Their leader, Joshua, sought the Lord to ask the reason for their defeat. It turns out there was sin in their midst: once that was dealt with, they could return to their military endeavours.

God still wanted them to advance on Ai, but He had them use a different strategy this time. Interestingly, He used their previous failure at Ai as part of the strategy!

Joshua told his soldiers: “You are to set an ambush behind the city. Don’t go very far from it. All of you be on the alert. I and all those with me will advance on the city, and when the men come out against us, as they did before, we will flee from them. They will pursue us until we have lured them away from the city, for they will say, ‘They are running away from us as they did before.’ So when we flee from them, you are to rise up from ambush and take the city. The Lord your God will give it into your hand.” (Joshua 8:4-7, italics mine)

As Joshua predicted, the king of Ai fell for this manoeuvre and the Israelites took the city. The key factor in their victory was God using the pattern of their previous defeat to fool the enemy into walking into a trap.

In the New Testament, there’s another story which shows us how God can use our mistakes to advance His kingdom.

When Paul and Barnabas were on their first missionary trip together, they brought along John Mark (sometimes just called Mark) as a helper. However, he bailed on them partway through, deserting them.

Later, Paul wanted to return to the same areas to see how the churches were doing. Barnabas agreed, but wanted to bring John Mark along. At this, Paul put his foot down. He didn’t want to have a quitter on the trip.

This led to a sharp disagreement between Paul and Barnabas, with the result that they split up and went on separate journeys, Barnabas with John Mark to Cyprus, and Paul with Silas to Syria and Cilicia (Acts 15:36-40).

Should Paul and Barnabas have been able to resolve their differences concerning John Mark? Probably. Perhaps Paul should have forgiven John Mark for his earlier misstep, as Barnabas clearly had. Maybe this split constitutes a failure on their parts.

But observe how God turned this around for good: He used the division between them to send out twice as many missionary teams to spread the gospel!

Not only that, but years later, there’s evidence that Paul reconciled with John Mark. While Paul was in prison, he sent a request to Timothy: “Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11).

With God, failure isn’t final. It wasn’t for Peter, who denied Christ three times; it wasn’t for King David, whose sins included adultery and murder (by proxy); and it needn’t be for you.

Put your trust in the God who can flip the script on your failures and give you a clean slate. He’s an expert at turning minuses into plusses: just look what He did at the Cross!

© 2023 Lori J. Cartmell. All rights reserved.