I wonder if Peter felt a twinge of guilt every time he heard a rooster crow.
Last year when I was in Israel, I could not get over how often I heard roosters crowing. I am used to waking up to the sounds of trash trucks, fire engines and car alarms. In my town, our rooster population is zero, but not in Israel.
Imagine Peter waking up every day to a rooster’s crow. The sound must have signaled an invitation into a cage of shame. A triggered flashback of his greatest failure. An old tradition states that for the rest of Peter’s life when someone wanted to heckle Peter they would crow like a rooster. Remember! Peter! Remember! Satan is not just a roaring lion but a crowing rooster as the accuser of the brethren. He tries to get us to watch the old video tapes of our FLOPS/FAILURES/FUMBLES.
Why does failure destroy some people and not others? Why do some give up and some fail forward? The God of the Second Chance can turn fiascoes into fine works of art. It is called grace … undeserved forgiveness, outrageous compassion … incredible spiritual clemency. When broken world people get restored like Simon Peter … watch out.
A book called Art and Fear shows how indispensably failure is tied to learning. A ceramics teacher divided her class into two groups. One got graded solely on the quantity of work. The other group got graded on the quality of work – produce one pot and it better be good. Amazingly, all the highest quality pots were turned out by the quantity group. It seems as they churned out quantity they were learning from their disasters and were growing along the way. Trying and failing and trying again works better than attempting perfection. No pot, no matter how misshapen, is really a failure.
Peter was in the quantity group. Many of his antics were not “A” material but he learned and grew by the grace of God. He never let a rooster stop him. NO FLOP/FAILURE/FUMBLE IS FINAL WITH GOD.
Prayer Requests
- The Louisiana Legislative Session wrapped up, and we are now in the final two weeks of a Special Legislative Session. Pray both the legislators and I finish well. I asked you to pray I would meet many of the new freshman legislators. It has been challenging with all the COVID-19 rules, but I have managed to meet many. Thank you.
- Continue to pray for Donna who is still challenged by painful neck, shoulder and disc problems.
- Pray for speaking engagements that have now been rescheduled for the summer and fall.
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.
“O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” Amen ~~St. Francis of Assisi
Doing Ministry a Little Differently
Helping Louisiana’s Leaders,
Michael