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Verse:But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. —2 Corinthians 12:9, 10, NIV
I don’t like to fail. When I do, it’s easy for the enemy to move me from failing to feeling like a failure. And then, it can be a downward spiral into shame and feeling that I am not enough and ready to quit. But what if God redeems and uses even our failures? I was reading the story of Peter, Jesus’ disciple, walking on water.
It’s often been told, and typically Peter gets a bit beat up for taking his eyes off Jesus and sinking in the raging, stormy waves. (Personally, I think we need to give him a shout-out for having the courage to even step out of the boat in the first place—he may have sunk, but he is the only one besides Jesus who walked on water!) But what if he hadn’t taken his eyes off Jesus and had walked all the way to Jesus and then walked with Jesus back to the boat? How would that change the story? What would have happened next? I imagine that the disciples would be high-fiving Peter and cheering for him, slapping him on the back. The story would easily become all about Peter and what he had just done. Because Peter failed, the story is about Jesus and what He does.
It tells us that God is a God who reaches down and grabs us when we go under —even when it’s our fault. Through Peter’s failure, the disciples, and now those of us who read his story all these years later, find encouragement in knowing that Jesus loves us that much. We see a glimpse of God’s power and strength and His powerful love. In Peter’s weakness, we see God’s strength. And it brings us hope and courage.
So while the enemy desires to use our failures as a way to discourage us and take out our hearts, God desires to use our failures as a way to encourage us and others in knowing and trusting that He is a God who reaches down, lifts us up, and gets us back on our feet. Grateful.
Tamyra Horst