Mistake Zone

We had three graduates celebrated Sunday night. One whose family chose our church years ago, raising him from childhood in this congregation. Another who chose to come as a youth, though his family was not active members. The third a fairly new member. All face what our Youth Pastor described as the "Mistake Zone."

True, serious mistakes can be made as a teen, but there's a greater opportunity for forgiveness and correction as a teen than there is as a high school graduate, to all intents and purposes – an adult. Mistakes made in this zone have greater consequences. The biblical example given included Psalm 90:

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. (Psalms 90:1-2 KJV)

Nope - not one of David's -- this is labeled "A Prayer of Moses the man of God." The example had to do with the "Mistake Zone" decision of an entire generation of the Children of Israel.

Moses led them out of Egypt toward the land God promised to them. He told them He would see to it the land would be theirs.  Their initial mistake was sending twelve men to verify what God had already told them. Then, they ignored the report.  All twelve gave a good report of how fertile the land was, bringing samples of the crops with them. Only two, however, were willing to comply with God's command. 

Ten were too frightened by the physical world to trust the spiritual. They ignored the plagues against Egypt. The forgot the dry land between the waters of the Red Sea. They erased the memory of the pillars both day and night. Perhaps they had even forget Mount Sinai and the commandments given from the Lord. Instead of seeing God’s possibilities, they saw themselves as grasshoppers:

And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. (Numbers 13:33)

David, on the other hand, faced a giant and trusted the Lord:

David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee. (1 Samuel 17:37)

David certainly didn’t live happily ever after – but he was a man after God’s own heart:

But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the LORD commanded thee. (1 Samuel 13:14)

Oh, he entered that Mistake Zone, too. Just as an entire generation of Israelites were kept out of the Promised Land, David was kept from building the temple for God’s house because of mistakes he made by not heeding God’s word, God’s plan for his life.

How much better, more blessed, easier – all those opportunities!! – it would be for each one of us when we stay close enough to our Lord to hear, then heed, His word.

Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. (Psalms 119:11)