I spilled half of the liquid for my smoothie. I said, “I’m sorry Lord that I wasted it.” Immediately the Lord said, “A mistake is not failure.” I thought about that as I was cleaning up my mess.

A mistake is not sin because sin is willful disobedience. Mistakes give us the opportunity to course correct. Sin is a choice, mistakes are a mis-step, or an error in judgment. I might be using a pattern to cut something out, but I went beyond a line I was supposed to stop at. 

You might be driving along and mistakenly take the wrong exit. You might be baking something and grab the salt by mistake instead of the sugar. Years ago a large family had finished their Thanksgiving dinner. They bit into their store-bought pumpkin pie, and it was too salty to eat. The baker made a mistake.

The question becomes, how are we supposed to respond to a mistake? The answer would be with grace. Often our reaction leads to sin, such as calling ourselves derogatory names, or taking it out on others through our explosive anger.