Why God Allows Us to Learn from Our Mistakes

god notices god cares and your choices matter [Music] hi my name is father mike schmitz and this is ascension presents so years ago i heard of a friend of my brother-in-law's at one point his parents had a unique parenting style where they wanted to teach their son responsibility fiscal responsibility so responsibility with money so what they did is they said okay what would it cost us as parents to raise you for an entire year um in excluding like you know rent or heat for or like normal meals but you know those things that uh like if you asked for a skateboard you asked for you know we'd had to buy you new clothes or whatever it takes to raise a kid right um he said they said instead of just buying those things piecemeal for him they said we're going to give you we're going to add it all up and give you that money that would have we would have spent on you in a lump sum it's yours now keep this in mind that it's yours to use to buy clothes and to if you want a skateboard or whatever the thing is right then that this is for you but it's this is the this is it this is the whole for this whole entire year so this young young man i mean he was in early adolescence they were teaching him this and no keep this in mind i get that there's some parents maybe out there saying that's the worst idea i've ever heard in my entire life they should be arrested those parents locked up because what happened was this young man did what you would think any young man would do i mean his parents warned him like this is it this is the thing but he went out and spent all of his money in a relatively short amount of time on uh fun stuff right on non-responsible things then when it came to winter he had a winter coat from the previous year as an early adolescent male he did not fit in that winter coat very well and so he had but he had to wear that the entire year his jeans had holes in them but he didn't have any money for new jeans and he kept going back to his parents saying can i have you know a new winter coat a new jacket new our new jeans new shoes they said well no you spent all your money now the important piece was the parents laid out the rules and they said this is the amount of money it's all yours but we want you to learn how to use this wisely in order to teach you how to use this wisely we're going to allow you to experience the consequences of foolish spending the next year i guarantee you the next year what happened and actually every year after this this young man had he knew the value of a dollar we'll say it like that he knew the value of a dollar he knew he knew what things were worth not just what they cost and from then on he became really really good at saving really really good at wise spending just being really really good at using money really well but it's only because his parents let him experience the consequences of his decisions now i'll go another caveat right sidebar here they didn't just cut him loose right like he was still fed every day he was still you know housed every night it wasn't like they just like kicked him out of the house you can't pay rent anything like this that wasn't even part of the equation they taught him consequences in the context of some safety right rather than him graduating high school and going out into the world and not having any idea of consequences and it all was on him his parents taught them taught this to him early so consequences and actually letting someone experience the consequences of their actions is not a mean thing to do it can feel mean right obviously that kid has he had holes in his jeans and maybe holes in his shoes that he's walking to school with a ill-fitting winter coat yes that can feel mean but it wasn't mean they were caring for their son by teaching him that actions have consequences now here's the thing for us when god forgives our sins we don't realize this we have to understand this god's mercy is infinite right because god is god is mercy and god is infinite therefore god's mercy is infinite it will never run out his forgiveness he's never slow to forgive he is quick to forgive he wants to give us mercy this is so important for us to know we know the heart of god the character of god he wants to give us his mercy that's who he is but there are many times when god will not only forgive us he will also allow us to experience the consequences of our sins in this life and in purgatory now here here's the thing could be if they're too con wait there's two kind of consequences to sins right there's eternal consequences to sins and there are temporary temporal consequences to sin eternal consequence of sin is hell right it's eternal separation from god but there are and so jesus christ has paid that price when we when we go to confession when we receive his mercy he pays that eternal consequence the eternal price of sin hell he we get to be reconciled to him and live with an eternity in heaven but there are temporal consequences to sin as well or might say temporary consequences to sin that god allows us at times to experience for a couple different reasons now um we see this in the bible here's david as an example david's sin with bathsheba and then his murder of bathsheba's husband uriah that david and bathsheba conceive a son and he's born and then god says to him through nathan the prophet your sin is forgiven but your son will die this is the consequence of your sin now we can see this from from our perspective and think like that is super unjust like why does this child have to die because of david's sin that's a whole other story hold on to the video to look at we also have kings in israel's history who have committed some kind of sin and god says okay i forgive you but here's what's going to happen uh your line will pass away or your kingdom will be the kingdom will be taken out of your hands like what you have done in hardening your heart to the lord is yes you're forgiven now but the consequence is the people will experience the consequences of your decisions and one of the things that reminds us of is the fact that even my private sin is not private right even my personal sin i'll say it like this even my personal sin is not private because oftentimes our personal decisions someone else has to pay for i mean think of how many times in our lives that is the case my personal sin someone else has to pay for i just chose not to live up to my promise i wasn't faithful to what i said i would do by showing up to work someone else has to take responsibility for that someone else has to pay that price and there are temporary consequences even if someone says no i forgive you it still costs them something and one of the things that cost is not just maybe their time getting back to the work scenario but sometimes it even costs a little bit of their trust like oh yeah i know that guy he doesn't show up for work i know her she doesn't tell the truth there are consequences to our sins that's one of the reasons why there's a difference between forgiveness and reconciliation so again you might forgive someone someone might forgive you and so that means we've talked about it in other videos in the past as well that forgiveness is i'm not going to ask you to pay me back i'm not going to wait for you to give me what you owe me so you're for your debt is forgiven i'm not going to wait for you to pay me back but reconciliation is now we're united again reconciliation is now what was divided by that sin what was divided by that that action of yours that choice of yours has now been uh reconciled right so we trust each other again our relationship has been reconciled our friendship has been restored and that's not always the case because why because there are consequences to our choices and god i think god allows us i think these consequences for a couple reasons one is to teach us when this young person ran out of money he wasn't kicked out of the house like this was not eternal consequences to sin right and it taught him as i said before the next year and the year after that this guy was he knew where every penny was going and he was very smart about it so it teaches us something when god allows us to experience the consequence of our sins and sometimes even to experience the consequences of other people's sins god is teaching us something and the second thing i think it's just so powerful is that god is teaching us that our decisions matter that that your choices matter i don't know if you've ever been in the situation where um you were learning about forgiveness maybe as a kid maybe your first kind of encounter with saying you're sorry you did the thing and because of doing the thing your parent or the teacher or whoever it was who was in authority said okay because of that here's the consequences and you said no no but i said i'm sorry i remember being in this case in this situation so many times where i i had done the that i had done the thing right i did the wrong thing i broke the rule whatever it was and so they said okay yeah well because of that you can no longer do x and i remember thinking but but but i said i was sorry and the response of really wise teachers and wise parents is i know you're sorry and i accept your apology i forgive you but you made that choice and this is the consequence which is such a gift for us not only again because it teaches us but also because it it highlights the fact that our decisions matter your choices matter you matter all of this is meant to be an encouragement like all this is meant to be an encouragement because if your choices my choices matter for evil right and then we experience the consequences of our foolish choices then also god wants you to experience the consequences of your good choices he wants even those private good choices those pros those personal good choices where it's like no one noticed this no one seems to care about this god notices god cares and your choices matter there are consequences even if you don't experience those consequences of your good choices yet in this life you don't feel them they're not as powerful because they don't pinch like the good consequences they don't don't often pinch those good consequences are often unnoticed but my just encouragement to you is this not to hold god in suspicion and say is this the time when he's gonna let me experience the consequence of my of my sins because we're so afraid of that right we're so afraid of like the hammer of the lord coming down on us do not hold the lord god in suspicion he loves you he wants to give you his mercy and even when he allows us to experience the consequences of our sins that experiencing of the consequences of our sins is always oriented towards healing and growth learning and responsibility so we can rise up from those things with his grace even more powerful even more humble even wiser i hope that makes sense uh but also don't be discouraged don't be afraid of the lord his mercies endure forever his mercies are every morning even even when he allows us to experience the consequences of our sins he is there with us in those consequences he never abandons us and he never will abandon you for always here to assistant presents my name's father mike god bless

Channel: Ascension Presents

Views: 66,138

Keywords: Fr. Mike, Fr. Mike Schmitz, Ascension Presents, Ascension, Ascension Youtube, Ascension Press, Father Mike Schmitz, Fr. Mike advice, Father Mike advice, fr. mike schmidt, mercy, God’s mercy, consequences, learning from mistakes, God the Father, life lessons

Id: XdBBwzVwzMk

Length: 10min 30sec (630 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 28 2021