Every experience has a lesson

In this article, Daniel Kawesa, a member of The Salvation Army’s International Children and Youth Advisory Group, reflects on the lessons we can learn from life’s mistakes and difficult experiences. He considers how even painful moments can deepen our trust in God, reminding us that hardship will pass and that the teachings from our experiences that we carry forward can enrich and shape our lives in unexpected ways. 

One afternoon, our family car overheated in the middle of traffic. The temperature warning light was flashing, a traffic officer was watching and I panicked. I jumped out, opened the bonnet and, without thinking, pulled off the radiator cap while leaning directly over it. A burst of scalding water shot into my face. ‘Painful’ does not even begin to describe it. The traffic officer felt so sorry for me that she told me to relax and take all the time I needed.

Every experience we go through in life carries a lesson within it. The good experiences, the bad ones, the painful ones and the joyful ones can all teach us something. None of them needs to go to waste.

Eventually, we got the car moving again, but I carried something with me long after the pain had faded: a lesson I will never forget. From that day onwards, I have known exactly how to handle an overheated car. I did not learn it from a manual, but through experience. I can promise you that I will never make the same mistake again.

That incident made me think about something bigger. Every experience we go through in life carries a lesson within it. The good experiences, the bad ones, the painful ones and the joyful ones can all teach us something. None of them needs to go to waste.

Whether we learn the easy way or the hard way, we can emerge wiser. The lessons we gain through experience are often the hardest to forget because they leave a lasting mark. Psalm 32:8 says: ‘I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you’ (NIV).

God teaches us and often he does so through the experiences we face.

Learning through the ordinary

Consider David. Before he stood before Goliath, he spent years alone in the fields as a shepherd. There was no crowd or recognition, only David and his flock. While caring for the sheep, he faced both a lion and a bear. By the time Goliath appeared, David had already learnt to trust God in dangerous situations. Those quiet, ordinary seasons in the fields were not wasted. They were God’s classroom, preparing David for what lay ahead.

David’s experience teaches us not to despise the small or unglamorous seasons of life. Something may be growing within us, even when we cannot yet see it.

Learning through pain

Then there is Joseph. He was sold by his own brothers, falsely accused, thrown into prison and forgotten. Year after year, his circumstances appeared to grow worse through no fault of his own. If anyone had reason to question God, it was Joseph.

Yet every painful experience was quietly shaping him into the man who would one day help to save a nation. Romans 8:28 tells us: ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose’ (NIV).

Joseph’s story brings this verse to life. His experience teaches us that when life feels unfair and nothing seems to be working, we should not only ask, ‘Why me?’ We can also ask, ‘What might God be preparing me for?’

Learning through failure

Peter also learnt through experience. Jesus warned him that, before the rooster crowed, he would deny three times that he knew him. Peter was confident that this would never happen, but it did, and afterwards he wept bitterly.

Yet Peter’s experience of failure and shame humbled and transformed him. The man who had denied Jesus out of fear became the man who preached boldly at Pentecost. Some lessons cannot be learnt simply from a book or a warning. We must live through them.

James 1:2-3 puts it this way: ‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance’ (NIV).

Peter’s experience reminds us that there are some things only experience can teach us. Once we have learnt them, nobody can take those lessons away. David learnt through the ordinary. Joseph learnt through pain. Peter learnt through failure. I learnt through an overheated radiator and a burned face. None of those experiences was wasted.

Whatever you are going through now, and however long it has continued, there may be a lesson within it. God does not waste our experiences. Before moving on from a difficult season, pause and ask yourself: ‘What is God teaching me through this?’ When we begin to answer that question, we discover that nothing we have endured is ever truly lost.