Oops! A Big Mistake!
I saw this headline: “Oops! Buc-ee’s Billboard Goes Viral Due to Embarrassing Spelling Mistake”. Apparently, the billboard reads: “You had me at Hodwy,” misspelling the word “Howdy”.
The mistake was first reported by radio announcer Danny Merrell who said the typo was discovered by his wife, an English teacher, on an Interstate 35 billboard.
Merrell joked “In the event that HODWY was an oversight, my wife would like to know if you are hiring a spell-checker. She has seen the signs in your store indicating the pay rates for employees, and after doing some comparisons to her current salary, she would like to apply for a possible spell-checker position.”
Some people theorized the mistake was intentional and done to capture PR and media attention. If the mistake was intentional, it achieved its goal of gaining media exposure.
All this “error” and “mistakes” talking opened the “blog” door for me today. Mistakes, can be inadvertent or in the case of Buc-ees, could be an intentional mistake to get someone’s attention.
Either way, as followers of Christ, we want to avoid making mistakes, but part of being a Christian means understanding that not one of us is perfect — except for God the Father and Jesus Christ. “For there is no difference,” wrote Paul, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22-23).
Not SOME of us. ALL of us. But, God isn’t looking for Christians who never make mistakes. He’s looking for Christians who learn from their mistakes. That’s something all of us can do.
It is entirely possible to go through life without ever correcting ourselves when we mess up. Solomon put it this way: “As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly” (Proverbs 26:11).
Sorry I put that image in your mind, but it does drive home the weakness of making the same bad choices over and over again. If we want to do better than Solomon’s dog image, it’ll take intentional effort from us.
Most of the time, a mistake is a bad decision that we need to own up to it when it happens. I’ll admit, I make many mistakes, but, thank God, that my conscience is quick to own up to it and even apologize for it to whoever received the brunt of it!
The doorway to change is learning from our mistakes by being honest with ourselves — looking at our blunders and admitting: “I made this bad decision.”
Once we’re willing to admit it to ourselves, we can admit it to God and “if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
When we acknowledge our mistakes and seek to make course corrections, God is happy to clear our slate and help us start again.
The Bible is full of mistakes (and lessons) from the lives of those who came before us. Those stories aren’t just ancient history. They are guides for avoiding modern-day pitfalls and making good decisions.
Good news – even when we make mistakes, the Bible helps us with these words: “A righteous man may fall seven times and rise again” (Proverbs 24:16). With God’s help through the Holy Spirit, we can be God’s kids who learn from our mistakes and never stop growing and moving forward.