Daily Devotional For Friday, May 16, 2025

Good day Southside! Mistakes. We all make them and sometimes they are a doozy. This is why we should learn from them. Let me share with you a couple of the world’s biggest construction mistakes ever:

• The Tacoma Narrows Bridge in the state of Washington, which was built in 1940. It was at the time the 3rd largest suspension bridge and the very first cable bridge suspension bridge that incorporated a series of plate girders as roadbed support. At the time, it cost $6 million. Today, that same bridge would cost around $1 billion counting inflation. It only lasted 4 months and 7 days. Why? The engineers failed to take in the issue of high winds that went through the Tacoma Narrows Strait. On the day of its collapse, 19 m/s winds caused the to sway back and forth buckling the suspension.
• The Sydney Opera House in Sydney Australia was supposed to take 4 years to build and only $4 million to do it. Instead, it took 14 years to build at a whopping cost of $14 million. Musicians began to complain that they could not hear the music due to acoustical flaws. It seems that the stage and production halls were switched in construction by mistake. It took another $300 million to fix this.
• In 2015, France ordered new trains that cost $20.5 billion. The only problem was they were too wide for 1,300 out of 8,700 station platforms. 
• The Wicked Bible – yes you read it correctly. It seems the mistake was made by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, omitting one crucial word from the seventh commandment, adultery, when the Bible was being printed. 
• The selling of Alaska – at the time, Russia needed money and sold Alaska to the USA. Little did Russia and the USA know at the time gold and oil would be discovered in it.
• The failed shooting of Adolf Hitler – The British soldier, Henry Tandey, described as the most British enlisted man to have survived World War I, spared the life of Adolf Hitler. The soldier found Hitler severely wounded and had him in his sight-close enough to make eye contact, but he lowered his gun out of compassion.

Look at Lamentations 3:40-42, “Instead, let us test and examine our ways. Let us turn back to the Lord. (41) Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven and say, (42) ‘We have sinned and rebelled’” (NLT). When we sin, the way we show true confession and remorse for our sin is through what the Bible calls repentance. What does that mean?

1. First, it means you agree with God that it is sin. If God calls it a sin, you agree with Him. You do not excuse it, rationalize it, defend it or justify it.
2. Second, you ask for God’s forgiveness.
3. Third, if your sin was against someone, ask for their forgiveness and in some cases, you have to correct the “wrong.” This means you may have to pay some money if you damage property, or serve time if it was a crime you are convicted of in court.
4. Fourth, turn to God. Repentance is an old turn that means “to do a 180.” You sinned because you were heading in the wrong direction. Now, you choose to head in the right direction – the direction that leads you to God.
5. Fifth, get a godly accountability partner you can be honest with about your life and your sin.

The greatest barrier to your sin is you – not God. Not someone else. You. Much of our sin comes from our own destructive habits, our own debilitating hang-ups and our own devastating hurts. We like to nurse them and wallow in self-pity parties, but all that does is put us in a pit. So, stop blaming others for your choice to sin. 

Assignment: Take some time to reflect on your life. What persistent sin are you pretending does not exist because you have hardened your heart to God’s conviction and guilt? Get an accountability partner to help you with this. If you have sinned against someone, before another day passes, go to them and confess your sin and seek their forgiveness. 

Scripture To Meditate On: Proverbs 28:13, “People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy” (NLT).

Prayer To Pray: “Lord, help me to come clean about my sin with you and especially with myself. I no longer want to excuse it, blame it on others, justify it or rationalize it. If I have sinned against anyone, I want to be like the Zacchaeus in Luke 19 – pay back 4 times as compensation. Thank you Lord for saving me,  loving me, forgiving me, convicting me, and restoring me to fellowship with You and others. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside! – Pastor Kelly