Learn now or later, but hopefully you will learn!
Last summer I went surfing with my daughter when I get stung, not once, but twice by a stingray. I got stung both times on my right foot, once on the bottom and once across the top of the middle toe.
It was my fault. I was told they were out there. I simply got so engrossed in catching waves that I forgot to do the surfer shuffle. It’s where you move your feet through the sand rather than walking on top of it. This causes the stingrays to swim away. Instead, I kept stepping on them, which resulted in being stung.
I obvious was too thick headed to learn from my first mistake. It took two stings for it to sink in! And because I didn’t, that middle toe droops causing me to constantly stub it!
Scripture tells me that I’m an imperfect perfect person (Hebrews 10:14). God already sees me as perfect, but He also knows that I’m imperfect until I leave this planet. Thus, I can either learn from my mistakes or repeat them.
Our God is a God of grace, which means I will be forgiven for those mistakes. But if I fail to learn from those mistakes, there can be consequences like a droopy toe. If I had learned from the first sting and started shuffling my feet, my toe would not droop today.
Learn the lesson Jesus is trying to teach you now. It will save you stubbed toes later!