We All Make Mistakes
By Joel Raygor
James 3:2
For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to rein in the whole body as well… ("Indeed, we all make many mistakes.")
It was about 50 years ago when I first went to a theater to watch an Alaskan hunting movie, but it took another decade before VHS tapes came out. Those new VHS videos like Quaker Boy, Drury, and H.S. Strut showed turkey after turkey strutting in front of the shotgun. For the deer hunter, there were videos of guys like Jackie Bushman with his Buckmasters series and David Blanton with the Realtree Monster Bucks, along with Will Primos and many others who brought the deer hunt right into our living rooms. Those early videos were entertaining, inspiring and to some degree educational.
Today there are boat loads of hunting videos available on YouTube and many are of hunters filming their own hunts. My favorites are videos of hunters showing their mistakes and failures. I learn much more by observing a poor setup or a woodsmanship blunder compared to a video with the edited picture perfect kill. In life we can learn a lot by seeing others making mistakes, but it seems that most of us still have to touch the electric fence for ourselves.
We read in the first chapter of Proverbs, verse 5, where King Solomon said "Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance." He is simply saying that wise people learn by watching others and the paths they take, rather than experiencing every pitfall for themselves.
In 1st Corinthians 10:11, the Apostle Paul talks about the purpose of past failures by writing, "Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction." Paul is looking back at the mistakes of ancient Israel in the wilderness and is warning the Corinthian believers to learn from the past.
Proverbs 12:15 "The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice."
Before you make the next poor setup in the woods or make another life blunder at the kitchen table, be wise and learn from those who have gone before you and touched that electric fence.
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