“Immediately a rooster crowed,and Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken, ‘Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly.” Matthew 26:74-75 (CSB)
When you experience failure, it sometimes feels like you’ll never recover. But you will. Whether you’ve experienced a failure in your finances, marriage, career, or something else, you can recover.
Recovery starts with grieving your failure. Don’t minimize it or pretend it didn’t happen. Don’t rush to try to feel better. Instead, take the time to feel the pain.
This highlights an important life principle: To get past something, you’ve got to go through it. That’s true in so many areas of life, but it’s particularly true with failure.
Grief is the way through failure. When you fail, you just want to forget it, to stuff your emotions and quickly move to the next thing. But that’s a mistake. Grief is the way you learn failure’s lessons.
When you swallow your emotions instead of going through them, your stomach keeps score. It’s like taking a can of soda, shaking it up, and putting it in the freezer. It’s eventually going to explode!
Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples, experienced the grief of failure firsthand. In a time of crisis, he denied that he even knew Jesus, and that failure led to deep grief.
The Bible says, “Immediately a rooster crowed,and Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken, ‘Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.’ And he went outside and wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:74-75 CSB).
Imagine how disappointed Peter must have felt in himself. He had walked alongside Jesus, watching him teach, do miracles, heal people, raise the dead, and offer mercy and forgiveness over and over again. Yet when he was put to the test about his commitment to Jesus, he denied him three times in a row.
But instead of ignoring his failure, Peter did the right thing: He was humble and regretful. He owned up to it and grieved—and that’s the key to healing.
Many people want to take shortcuts when they have a failure. They want to bypass the affair and pretend it didn’t shatter their marriage, so they rebound into another relationship. Or they pretend it was someone else’s fault the business failed and start another one right away. They simply never learn the lesson.
But there is no shortcut to grieving and recovering from failure. The greater the failure, the more time it’s going to take to heal. Let God work in your heart. You can’t force healing. Recovery is an act of God's mercy, and it will come in time.
Rick Warren is an innovative pastor, renowned author, and global influencer known for founding Saddleback Church, the Purpose Driven Network, the PEACE Plan, and Hope for Mental Health. He has written several best-selling books, including The Purpose Driven Life, which has sold over 35 million copies in 200 languages. Time magazine named Warren the most influential spiritual leader in America and one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Since stepping down from the lead pastor role at Saddleback in 2022, Warren has continued to inspire people through his Daily Hope Devotional and podcast Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope. His first book in a decade, Created to Dream, was released in April 2023.
For more Daily Hope with Rick Warren, please visit pastorrick.com!
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