Life is a Game of Mistakes

Something we have been trying to get our athletes to understand as we coach is that Basketball is a game of mistakes.  In the game of basketball you are always going to make mistakes, they are inevitable. You can’t avoid making mistakes and if you try to avoid making them then you probably aren’t playing that hard. The goal is not to simply “not make mistakes”, the goal is to respond to the mistakes you made in a positive manner. When a mistake is made in the game, are you the kind of athlete that just gets upset or blames someone else for it? Do you look for a way not to take responsibility for your own actions? How we respond to the mistakes we make is far more important than the mistake we made in the first place. This is all a part of the learning process. We have to open our eyes to see things like, what we could have done differently or how could I have done it better in order to really take our game to the next level. This really applies to any sport we play but even more so towards the life we are living. 

Throughout our life time, we will make countless mistakes. Some may have been avoidable, some maybe not. The most important aspect of the mistakes we make is how we choose to respond to them. We can get upset, blame other people, blame the circumstances, or choose not even to acknowledge it. When we do these things, nobody wins. I hate making mistakes, absolutely despise it. I have had to learn over the years that this is just a necessary part of the learning process God has put in place. No matter what direction I turn, I feel like I am making mistakes in just about every area of my life. 

God wants us to understand that we need him. In every aspect of life we need God’s presence in order to be all that we can be for him. Just like a good coach, God allows us to make mistakes but he wants us to learn from them. When we don’t embrace that learning process it’s like we are telling God we don’t want to learn what he has to teach us. In Isaiah 55:8-9, God talks about how his thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not like our ways, we can only see part of the picture but God sees the whole picture. Who are we to question the process he has put in place to learn? It’s painful at times to acknowledge and face our mistakes. It’s never a pretty sight but these are the things that remind us to turn to God and understand that he has a higher purpose for us, one that we could never imagine. 

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not My ways.” This is the Lord’s declaration. “For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭55:8-9‬ ‭HCSB‬‬