Proverbs 21.11 — Learn from the mistakes of others

“When a mocker is punished, the simple gain wisdom; by paying attention to the wise they get knowledge.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to learn from other people’s mistakes. What’s amazing is that we often DON’T learn from other people’s mistakes, nor even from our own. First of all we want to do what we want to do. Secondly, we have little resistance and willpower against temptation. Thirdly, we don’t reflect on life enough to actually learn from our mistakes and gain wisdom as we go. (I guess the crude way of saying this is that we’re self-centered, bull-headed, weak-willed, and shallow, but hey, who would say THAT to somebody?)

But see, all of these things are changeable. We can learn to not be self-centered, bull-headed, weak-willed, and shallow, can’t we? If not, then run for political office. (Did I just say that?) One of the best ways to learn is from each other. We need to find people that we can trust and who can lead us deeper into faith and knowledge. If we walk with the wise, we will grow wise.