My friend Jeanette and I have been working on a sewing project for the last three weeks.  We finished it yesterday--finally. 

If you are a seamstress, you know that if you aren’t an expert yet, it is because you haven’t ripped out at least one mile of stitches that were not done right.  Rip, rip, rip...and you will never make that mistake again.

I am sure it is the same for carpenters, carpet layers, brick layers and any other precision skilled worker.  Redo requires tearing apart what you have just done--and doing it over again--the right way.

I consider my self an expert seamstress.  I made everything my girls wore when they were small, and much of what they wore as they grew up.  I remember making my son Scott a suit, and when he tried it on he said “I  can’t wear this, the buttonholes are on the wrong side.”  I had not remembered that men and women had buttons on opposite sides.  I threw the suit in the trash.  Hours and hours of work--for nothing.  But I never made that mistake again.  I made every mistake imaginable--once.

The Christian life should be like that.  When we realize that we have made a mistake, we realize it, repent, start over and do right from then on.