And He said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour?” Matthew 26:40
Jesus asked the disciples, twice, to pray for Him while they were in the Garden of Gethsemane, just before He is to be sacrificed. But they fall asleep, twice. Then when Judas and the Roman guards come, Peter lashes out and cuts off the ear of one of the guards and Jesus has to reprimand him and miraculously put his ear back on. And, as if that weren’t enough faltering, Peter then (as Jesus is being lead to the cross) denies Jesus 3 times, just as Jesus prophesied that He would.
Hard to believe that men who walked with Jesus day in and day out and saw his miracles first hand, could fail him so frequently. But, boy can I relate.
I hate to fail. That little revelation probably doesn’t put me in the minority. In fact it would be surprising to me if anyone said ” Oh no, failure is one of my favorite past times.” lol. But, I also fear failure.
I grew up in a home with a very strict and abusive father whose favorite motto was “you never do anything you have to say you are sorry for”. What that meant was that we (as children) should strive for perfection and apologize for every little thing we did, out of fear, and he just never said he was sorry, no matter what the infraction.
As a result, when ever anything goes wrong, I blame myself first, panic and apologize and then try to figure out how we fix the issue.
Over the course of my life I have had MANY failures. Some little and some quite large. In fact, if practice makes perfect, its one of the few things I am close to an expert at : )
The truth is, we are all going to fail. But, it isn’t the failure that matters as much as it is what we do about it. Do we wallow in self pity? Do we bury our head in the sand and pretend we don’t notice? Do we run? Do we curl up in a ball and just hide? Do we pray?
Fortunately for us, the scripture has a number of failures that we can use as examples. Not to fail, but to persevere through the process.
King David was a mighty man of God, chosen by God to lead His people. God referred to King David on two different occasions as “a man after my own heart”. How Godly must a man be for God to say that?
Then he sees her….King David sees a woman that he just must have as his own. Despite the fact that she is the wife of one of his most loyal men, he has a relationship with her and when he finds out she is pregnant with his child he arranges for the mans “accidental” death.
Sounds like a pretty big failure to me…but when we read the Psalms we find that King David had a repentant heart. Now, he still had to suffer the consequences for his sin, but in Psalm 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130 we see the magnitude of King David’s repentance. And, in Psalms 23, 100, 117 and 136 we see King David’s praise for God’s love, faithfulness, goodness, etc. He was restored to God, after He repented and got back on track.
King David, along with Peter, Moses and John Mark, are great examples of failure, repentance and restoration.
We are going to fail, maybe we will fail to evangelize when the Holy Spirit leads, maybe we will fail at work, maybe we will fail one of our children with a wrong decision, perhaps we will fail our spouse. Our scriptural examples prove that if failure is followed by true repentance it will also be followed by restoration.
I am not saying that if you are a bank teller and you embezzle lots of money, but go to your boss and say you are sorry, that you will not suffer consequences and be restored to your original position.
I am telling you that our Heavenly Father will forgive you restore you to a right relationship with Him, if you are truly repentant. And, if you are right with our Heavenly Father, all the rest will fall in to place. He will provide and be with you. He will give you a life with purpose, hope and a future. He has promised.
So, the next time you fail, lets look to the scripture and the examples that we find there and lets pray, repent and be restored.
I pray that your failures become triumphs and that you glory in the way that God blesses and restores you.
Luv ya!
