Failure and Recovery (Part 1)
“I don't know who you are talking about! Leave me alone, I tell you. I don't know anything about the man.” There was loud cursing and swearing like you have never heard before. Is this the scene from the back room in a mob hang out? A drug deal gone sour? On the contrary. This tortured man is free to come and go as he pleases. He is warming himself by a courtyard fire and his interrogators are two girls—not women, girls—servant-girls, asking innocent, curious questions. This is Peter denying Jesus.
Not many have their failure recorded four different times in the world's all-time, best-selling book, the Bible. Few of us have committed failures that are the subject of so many sermons of derision designed to motivate listeners to lives of diligence because of his poor example.
You are going to experience failure. Christianity is not a magic mantra invoking divine protection from the harshness of life or the consequences of fleshly choices. This is a war, a spiritual war and their will be casualties.
Failure is not always the result of sin. Just because things are going poorly and you conclude that your efforts have failed, does not necessarily mean that you have walked after the flesh. Evaluating results can be tricky business. There are plenty of successes achieved by the force of a man's determination to succeed, but our Father declares them failures because they were generated by fleshly resolve. On the other hand, there are those results that appear to be failures that our Father declares successes because we trusted Him. In other words, God evaluates success versus failure based upon methodology rather than results. (See 1 Corinthians 3:10-15).
What about those times when failure is your own doing? You walked after the flesh and lived independently of Father. You sinned, and the consequences are staring you in the face. What do you do? How do you handle it? Over the next few weeks, I want to explore seven steps for recovering from failure:
- Repent
- Refocus
- Remind
- Renew
- Review
- Reward