Honest Mistake?

Are you serious, I inwardly groaned.  How many times in baking have I put in tablespoons instead of teaspoons?  I suppose that's not as bad as cups for tablespoons, but it pretty much sabotages whatever is being baked.  This morning I was making crepes for the family and only after piling 4 tablespoons of sugar on 2 cups of white flour did I realised my error.  At that moment I faced a decision bakers and chefs from the beginning of time have been forced to answer:  do I try to salvage the dish or just chuck it all and start over?  Many times I have been able to salvage the dish by carefully removing the extra bi-carb or cream of tartar.  But not this time.  I dumped the lot into the bin and started over.

When we make mistakes, that is the right course of action.  If we make a mistake and hope nobody notices, our salvage attempts often produce a poor result.  It is far better to admit our mistakes freely, apologise genuinely, and humbly start over.  This humbling process begins with us confessing our sin before God.  We like to term mistakes like the aforementioned as "honest mistakes," meaning there was no malice in our hearts beforehand.  In actuality it would be better to call such an error a careless mistake.  Had I double checked the amounts and measured carefully, the mistake could have easily been avoided.  Whether or not I had evil intentions when I poured the ingredients didn't change the fact I had loaded the bowl with almost four times more sugar than what the recipe called for!  If my family can notice slight differences in texture and taste from one batch of pancakes or crepes from the last, won't God notice when I try to hide my flaws by my secret salvage attempts?

Repentance is a beautiful gift from God.  It allows sinners like me to have a fresh start.  God put in His law provisions for imperfection.  Through sacrifice, atonement could be made for the sins of people.  God knows we will make mistakes.  Jesus loves sinners, and proved it by dying on the cross for the sins of His enemies.  It was liberating to throw away the contaminated flour and start over.  I didn't have to worry about the taste being off or the ingredients sticking to the pan.  I didn't have to go through the process of spending an hour cooking the crepes only to discover they were inedible.  All the worry, preoccupation, and irritation of making a stupid mistake was over because I started over fresh!  When we have made a mistake, let us be quick to admit it and start over with a new beginning offered us by God's grace.  What joy and peace is ours when we quit trying to salvage our mistakes and begin afresh!