Good morning. Please use your imagination for a moment to visualize someone. He is in the shadows, because he does not want to be seen. He is not sniffling, or whimpering, or even crying as we know it. He is bawling. His cries are like those of a wounded animal howling in the night. He is experiencing a pain unlike any he has known before, and he prays that he will never feel anything like it again.
The one who is shouting in pain wracked grief, howling from the dark shadows is the same one who has been known for his bravery. He once trusted Jesus enough to step out of the boat and onto the water. He is the one of the twelve known as the most impetuous, the most confident, the most certain. Soon, not many days in the future, this same man will speak boldly before thousands, many of whom are the sworn enemies of all who would claim Christ. But not now, not after what he has so recently done.
He doesn’t know whether his pain is greater due to the fact that he is guilty, that he betrayed and denied His Lord, or whether it is because he had sworn that he never would do such a thing. Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.” Luke 22:33-34
The one in the shadows is Peter, and he buries his heavily bearded face into his thick, scarred hands. All he had promised that he would never do, he had done. Not once, but three times he had failed Jesus in that terrible night.
When the others had reconciled their failures with the truth of the risen Lord, Peter told them that he was going back to his boat. He was going to go back to his life as a fisherman. It was there, on the shores of Galilee as he once again threw his nets into the water with hope of a catch that Jesus came to him. It was there that the burly man with a broken spirit was reinstated by Jesus. Using the name Peter carried before he had come to know Jesus, the Lord said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love Me? He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of My sheep.”
Three times Jesus asked, and three times Peter answered, each time a bit more painful than the last. Jesus would not allow Peter’s brokenness to continue. There was work to do, Kingdom work. And Peter was the man for the job.
You see, Jesus is far less interested in our failures than He is in our future. Jesus is always looking ahead, because there are souls to save, and work to be done among believers.
Whatever failures twist your heart, give them to Jesus. He will reinstate you, love you, trust you, and set you straight.
Vern