How do you face failure? Failures are a part of life. However, failures are not meant to last forever.

Some of the great people in history have failed but have managed to forge through their failures. The story of the apostle Simon Peter shows that though he failed, he found a way to forge through failure. Some would say that Peter made of the greatest failures when denied knowing Jesus at very critical time.

In fact Jesus told Peter that he would deny him 3 times during g the night of His (Jesus’) arrest. Sure enough when Peter had the opportunity to stand up for Jesus, Peter denied knowing Jesus not just once but 3 times. Though Peter failed most would not call him a failure. Peter was able to forge through his failure. The story of Peter forge g past failure can be found in the Bible in the book of Joh. Chapter 21. Let’s examine how to forge past failure.

It has been over a week since the resurrected Jesus has appeared to Simon Peter. So for 8 days Peter has to live with his failure of denying Jesus. So Peter decides he needs to get away from things and go fishing. After a failure one of the first things we need to do is get away for a while and think about it. Another thing Peter does is get with friends. The story says that some of the disciples go fishing with Peter. After failing we need our friends to be with us.

Another act that helped Peter and will help us get over failure is to look for Jesus. While Peter and friends were fishing, Jesus showed up by the lake, though they did not know it was Him at first. Jesus is always looking for us when we fail, but are we looking for Him? Not only do we need to look for Jesus, we need to Listen to Jesus. Jesus told them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat and catch fish. The disciples had been fishing all night on the wrong side of the boat, but when they listened to Jesus they caught fish. After a failure, the best person to .intended to is Jesus.

After listening to Jesus and catching fish, Jesus invites us to join Him for a get together. Jesus invited Peter and the others to share a meal together. He wanted to restore their fellowship. When we fail, we need to get back into a good relationship with God. He wants to restore us into His goodness. After this we see how Jesus treats Peter by re-establishing their relationship by leading Peter to declare his love and loyalty. In the eyes of Jesus, Peter was not a failure. When we fail, Jesus does not see us as
failures. He wants to lead us forge past our failures.