Haunted By Failure #168

“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.
But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
 But he replied, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.”
 Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”
Luke 22:31-34

But he denied it. “Woman, I don't know him,” he said.
 A little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.”
“Man, I am not!” Peter replied.
 About an hour later another asserted, “Certainly this fellow was with him, for he is a Galilean.”
 Peter replied, “Man, I don't know what you're talking about!” Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.” And he went outside and wept bitterly.
Luke 22:57-62

Have you ever been haunted by past failures? I have, in fact, just today I was.
Faced with some decisions and looming tasks I have been charged with completing, I found myself besieged by the accuser. I found myself listening to that voice, reminding me of so many things I have fallen short in, the "would'ves, could'ves, should'ves", personally, professionally, academically, spiritually...reminding me of my weaknesses, how a lack of  college degrees and accreditation make me worthless in the professional world. He whispered to me as I sat home convalescing and on leave from my job that I am a lousy provider, a lousy father, a poor excuse of a husband, that I will never be able to fulfill prophetic words spoken into my life....
In the middle of the devil's diatribe against me, though, the Holy Spirit broke through, reminding me of Peter's life-yet again:

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
Acts 2:14, 41

I identify with Peter because  he was a weak, fumbling, double-minded clod (BHS-Before Holy Spirit) who failed miserably at the moment of truth.
Is Jesus enough?
Is He worth it all, even when our very lives may be at stake?
He was able to do nothing on his own,  denying Jesus and finding himself eye to eye to the Son, whose expression didn't say - "see I told you you couldn't ", but instead a reassuarance that said',"You can do all things as you abide in Me". I thought about Peter being cut to the heart after hearing the rooster's crowing, his running away, and going back to his fishing career, for a few days, but the haunting, his failures, satan's sifting, never escaped his thoughts. Somehow though, he finds himself in that upper room in Acts 2, and we read about a Peter transformed, and the Comforter patches the cracks in the broken vessel Peter was, and forgetting what's behind him, he and the other disciples and many others move forward and turn the world upside down.
Beloved, I am not, and you are not a failure because if Jesus Christ, the hope of glory, dwells in you, we have His promises, and are enabled by the Holy Spirit- if He dwells in us. It's not by strength or might, but by His Spirit...We need to make sure there is room in our hearts for the Spirit of God to abide there though, and that means everything else has to go.
Unconditional surrender are the only terms the Holy Spirit will accept;
cast off  lies and accusations of the past and fulfill the only Plan that matters:
GOD'S.