The presentation Chiderah gave to the cooperative society was the best they had ever seen. She had prepared slides on her laptop and borrowed the church projector. There were charts showing monthly returns of thirty per cent. There were screenshots of testimonies from other investors. There was a short video of the platform’s founder, a smooth young man in a white agbada, thanking God for financial freedom.
The cooperative had been running for nine years at her parish on the mainland in Lagos. One hundred and forty members saved small amounts every month, mostly traders, teachers, drivers and retirees, and took low-interest loans for school fees and shop stock. Chiderah was the secretary. She was thirty-four, worked in a bank, and was known as the clever one, the woman who understood money. When she proposed putting eleven million naira of the society’s savings into the platform, the treasurer, an elderly retired headmaster, asked one cautious question. Chiderah answered it confidently, and the committee approved the proposal that evening.
For four months the returns came in. Then the platform froze withdrawals “for upgrade.” Then the website disappeared. Then the founder’s phone numbers stopped ringing.
Among the members was Mrs Okoro, a widow of seventy-one who had been saving with the society since its first month. Her savings were meant for her own burial, so that her children would not have to borrow. Chiderah went to her house to apologise. The old woman held her hands and said, “My daughter, it is well.” That made it worse.
Chiderah resigned from the committee. She left the choir. She stopped going to her parish and began attending a large church across town where nobody knew her. She changed her WhatsApp picture to a plain black square. When I finally sat with her, she said only one sentence about herself, and she said it several times: “I destroy everything I touch.”
That sentence is the subject of this teaching. Failure is real. It must be faced honestly. But there is a way of examining failure that leads to change, and there is a way that leads only to a permanent and paralysing identity. Few people in Scripture show the difference more clearly than Simon Peter.
Simon, Simon
The story is well known. On the night of His arrest Jesus predicted that Peter would deny Him, and before morning Peter did so three times. After the resurrection Jesus restored him by the Sea of Galilee. Earlier teaching in this series has looked at that restoration as a picture of grace. Here I want to begin a little earlier, at the supper table, with words Jesus spoke before Peter had failed at all.
And the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me.
Look first at the setting. Luke tells us that only moments before, “there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest” (Luke 22:24). The disciples were arguing about rank at the Last Supper. That matters. Peter’s coming failure grew in the soil of comparison and self-confidence.
“Simon, Simon.” Jesus uses his old name, twice, the way a parent speaks when something serious is coming. “Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat.” In the Greek the you here is plural. Satan had asked for all the disciples. Then the pronoun changes: “But I have prayed for thee.” That is singular. Jesus had prayed specifically for Peter.
The image of sifting is vivid. Grain was shaken violently in a sieve so that the chaff, dust and stones were separated from the wheat. Satan intended the shaking for destruction. He wanted to prove that Peter was nothing but chaff. But the scene recalls the opening of Job, where Satan also had to ask before he could touch God’s servant, and could go no further than God allowed (Job 1:12). The sifter is on a leash. And the same shaking that Satan meant for ruin, God would use to separate what was false in Peter from what was true.
Now notice what Jesus prayed. He did not pray that Peter would be spared the sifting. He did not even pray that Peter would not fall. He prayed “that thy faith fail not.” The word suggests something giving out completely, like a lamp running out of oil or a supply being exhausted. Jesus knew Peter would stumble. He prayed that the stumble would not become a total collapse of faith.
And then the most remarkable phrase of all: “when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” Jesus said when, not if. Before the failure had happened, Jesus had already spoken of Peter’s return, and He had already given him a job to do afterwards. The failure was foreseen, prayed over, and set inside a future of service.
PunchlineJesus prayed for Peter before Peter fell, and He spoke of his return before he had even left. Your failure did not take Him by surprise, and His intercession for you began before it.
That is still true. Scripture says of the risen Christ that “he ever liveth to make intercession” for those who come to God by Him (Hebrews 7:25). Paul asks, “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us” (Romans 8:34).
The level where Peter failed
Peter’s reply is sincere, and it is the key to understanding what went wrong: “Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death.” In Matthew’s account it is sharper: “Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended” (Matthew 26:33). John records him saying, “I will lay down my life for thy sake” (John 13:37).
Was Peter lying? No. He meant every word. Was he lacking in love? No. He would prove that later in the evening by drawing a sword in the garden against a crowd of armed men. The problem lay elsewhere. Peter trusted his own strength, and he measured himself against others: “though all men.” That is precisely where the sifting would expose him.
This is important for anyone trying to learn from failure. Every failure has a level at which it can be understood and changed. If you examine it at the wrong level, you will either learn nothing or be crushed.
Some people examine failure too shallowly. “It was bad luck.” “The system is corrupt.” “Anyone would have done the same.” They look for causes outside themselves and never touch what needs changing within.
Others examine failure too globally. “I am a failure.” “I destroy everything I touch.” “I am the kind of person who always gets it wrong.” That sounds like humility, but it is a dead end. You cannot change your entire being by tomorrow morning. A verdict on your whole identity offers no handle to grip. It produces either despair or a quiet excuse never to try again.
Between these two lies the level where change is possible: specific decisions, specific patterns, specific beliefs, and specific weaknesses that can be named and addressed. Peter’s failure was not “I am a coward.” It was self-reliance and a hunger to be first. Those things could be named. And, as we shall see, they could be dealt with.
Lamentations, traditionally attributed to Jeremiah, gives the right instinct: “Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD” (Lamentations 3:40). Search our ways. That means our actual conduct, examined honestly, with a view to turning.
A look in the courtyard
Luke alone records a detail of the denial that changes how we read the whole night:
And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew. And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.
“The Lord turned, and looked upon Peter.” Jesus was being led across the courtyard under guard, already struck and mocked. At the exact moment of the third denial, with the cock crowing, He turned His head and looked at His friend. Luke does not describe the look. But what followed tells us something about it. “Peter remembered the word of the Lord.” He remembered the prediction, and surely the prayer that came with it. “And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.”
There is a world of difference between two kinds of sorrow over failure. Paul names them: “For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). Peter wept bitterly, and his sorrow eventually brought him back. On the same night, Judas also felt the weight of what he had done. Matthew tells us he “repented himself,” brought back the money and said, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood” (Matthew 27:3-4). Then he went out and took his own life.
Both men failed. Both felt deep regret. The difference was where the sorrow turned. Judas turned inward and found nothing there but his guilt. Peter, in his grief, still had a word to remember and a Lord who had prayed for him. Godly sorrow leads somewhere. Worldly sorrow closes in on itself.
I must speak carefully here. If your sense of failure has become so heavy that you have begun to think the world would be better without you, please hear this clearly: that thought is not the voice of God. Tell someone today, a pastor, a trusted friend or a doctor. If you are in immediate danger, go to the nearest hospital emergency department. Shame of that depth often comes with depression, and depression is treatable. Jesus turned and looked at Peter. He is looking at you with the same intention: to bring you back.
Taking responsibility without carrying everything
NuggetSo how do we examine failure at the level where change is possible? Peter’s story and Chiderah’s both suggest some practical steps.
Name what you actually did. Chiderah eventually wrote it down. She had proposed an investment she had not properly verified. She had dismissed the treasurer’s caution. She had ignored the old rule that returns that seem too good to be true usually are. And, when she was honest, she had wanted to be the one who brought prosperity to the cooperative. These were real failures, specific and nameable.
Do not shift the blame. Peter did not blame the servant girl who questioned him or the crowd around the fire. Responsibility means owning your part plainly. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).
But do not take on more than your share. The fraudsters who ran the platform bear the greatest guilt. The committee approved the decision together. Chiderah’s part was serious, but it was not the whole. Some people respond to failure by absorbing every bit of blame in sight, as though that were a sign of true repentance. It is not. It is another way of making yourself the centre of the story.
Repair what you can. Where others have been harmed, look for practical ways to make amends. Chiderah could not replace eleven million naira. But she could contribute something, she could help pursue the case with the police and the regulators, and she could help the cooperative build better rules.
And identify the change. Peter’s self-reliance needed to give way to dependence. Chiderah’s need to be seen as clever needed to give way to accountability. Ask: what specific habit, safeguard, or way of thinking will be different next time?
There is a word here for the church as well. How a congregation treats people who have failed will often decide whether they rise or stay down. Paul writes, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted” (Galatians 6:1). The goal is restoration, and the manner is meekness. Gossip, cold shoulders and endless reminders push the fallen towards the door. Honest accountability, offered with warmth, helps them back to their feet. Mrs Okoro understood this instinctively. She had lost more than most, and yet the first thing she did was hold Chiderah’s hands. The cooperative still needed to recover its money and repair its rules, and nobody pretended otherwise. But a church that can say both “this was wrong” and “you are still ours” becomes a place where people can afford to tell the truth about their failures. And people who can tell the truth are the ones who learn.
A just man falleth seven times
The book of Proverbs contains a verse that every person recovering from failure should know:
Lay not wait, O wicked man , against the dwelling of the righteous; spoil not his resting place: For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.
In its context the verse speaks to a wicked man plotting against a righteous household. Its first meaning concerns calamity: the righteous may be knocked down by trouble again and again, but they rise. Yet the principle reaches naturally into failures of every kind. Notice what defines the just man. It is not that he never falls. He “falleth seven times.” Seven is the number of fullness in Scripture. The just man falls fully, repeatedly, more than once. What marks him out is that he “riseth up again.”
That overturns one of our most stubborn assumptions. We tend to think that righteous people are the ones who never fall. Proverbs says the righteous are the ones who get up. The psalmist says the same: “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand” (Psalm 37:24).
Micah gives voice to this from the inside, in one of the most honest passages in the prophets:
Therefore I will look unto the LORD ; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me. Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me. I will bear the indignation of the LORD , because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.
Look at how the prophet holds two things together. “I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him.” He does not deny his guilt or dodge the consequences. And at the same time: “when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.” Accepting consequences and expecting restoration are not opposites. Micah does both. He waits for God to “bring me forth to the light.”
That is the posture of a person learning from failure without being defined by it. I sinned. I will bear what follows. And I will rise, because the Lord is my light.
Breakfast and a commission
After the resurrection, the angel at the tomb told the women to “tell his disciples and Peter” (Mark 16:7). Peter was named. Then, some days later, came the morning by the lake:
So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.
PunchlineMuch has been said about the three questions that answer the three denials, and rightly. But notice two other things that speak directly to failure and future service.
First, the question “lovest thou me more than these?” recalls Peter’s boast: “though all men shall be offended... yet will I never.” The failure had grown from comparison. Now Peter makes no comparisons at all. He does not say, “I love You more than John does.” He says, “thou knowest that I love thee,” and finally, “Lord, thou knowest all things.” He no longer appeals to his own claims about himself. He appeals to Jesus’ knowledge of him. The sifting had done its work. The chaff of self-confidence had been shaken out, and the wheat of genuine love remained.
Second, Jesus answers each confession with a task. “Feed my lambs.” “Feed my sheep.” Restoration did not end with forgiveness. It placed Peter back in service. Jesus did not say, “I forgive you, but you had better stay in the background from now on.” He gave His flock to the man who had denied Him.
And then comes a prophecy that turns Peter’s boast upside down. “When thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God.” At the supper, Peter had promised to go “into prison, and to death.” He failed that night. But now Jesus tells him that he will indeed follow Him to death one day, and glorify God in it. What Peter could not do by his own strength, he would one day do by grace. In the upper room Jesus had said, “thou canst not follow me now; but thou shalt follow me afterwards” (John 13:36). Now, by the lake, He says it: “Follow me.”
Those were the same words with which He had first called Peter from his nets years before (Mark 1:17). Peter’s failure had not cancelled his calling. It had prepared him for it.
Some failures do require a person to step back from a particular role for a season, especially where trust has been broken, people have been harmed or safeguarding is involved. Restoration to fellowship is immediate for the repentant. Restoration to a particular office may rightly take time and accountability. But a serious mistake need not become a permanent excuse to avoid all future service. “I will never lead anything again” can sound humble while actually being a way of hiding.
Strengthen thy brethren
“When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” The word converted here means turned back. Peter turned back, and then he strengthened others.
Think of Peter standing up on the day of Pentecost, only weeks after the courtyard. “Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice” (Acts 2:14), and the man who had been silenced by a servant girl preached to thousands. Soon the rulers were marvelling at “the boldness of Peter and John” (Acts 4:13).
Now read Peter’s own letters with Luke 22 in mind. “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Peter knew the sifter personally. Then: “But the God of all grace... after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you” (1 Peter 5:10). The word translated stablish there is the same Greek word Jesus used at the supper: strengthen thy brethren. Decades later, the old apostle was still doing the job Jesus had given him the night he failed. In his second letter he wants his readers “established in the present truth” (2 Peter 1:12), using the same root again, and he warns them not to “fall from your own stedfastness” (2 Peter 3:17). Peter writes like a man who knows how falling works.
He did not become flawless. Years later, at Antioch, Peter withdrew from eating with Gentile believers because he feared the opinion of certain men from Jerusalem, and Paul rebuked him publicly (Galatians 2:11-14). Fear of others had tripped him again. But he received the correction, and his later letter speaks warmly of “our beloved brother Paul” (2 Peter 3:15). Even a restored apostle went on learning. That should comfort you. Rising again is a pattern for life, not a single event.
It took Chiderah almost a year to return to her parish. The first Sunday she sat at the back and left before the grace. The second Sunday Mrs Okoro found her in the car park and held her hands again, and this time Chiderah let herself cry.
Some months later the cooperative society decided to rewrite its rules. The president, a quiet transporter who had lost money himself, called Chiderah and asked her to help. She refused twice. “Why would you want me?” she asked. He said, “Because nobody in this church knows better than you where the holes are.”
She drafted the new rules herself. No investment outside regulated institutions. Two signatures on every withdrawal. A written risk assessment for any decision over a set amount, read out at a general meeting before any vote. And a clause she insisted on: any member, however junior, may ask for any proposal to be delayed for thirty days for further checking. She now teaches a financial literacy class for the women’s fellowship twice a year. The first session is always about schemes that promise too much. She tells her own story at the start.
She is back in the choir. Her WhatsApp picture shows her laughing with her nieces. Not long ago she said to me, “I used to say I destroy everything I touch. That was a lie. The truth is that I made a serious mistake for specific reasons. Those reasons I can work on. The lie I could only drown in.”
Perhaps you are carrying a failure that has become your name. Hear the words of Jesus to Simon. He prayed for you before you fell. He turned and looked at you, and the look was meant to bring you back. Search your ways at the level where change is possible. Bear what you must bear. Then rise, because a just man falls seven times and rises up again. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brethren.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Is there a failure in your past that has become part of how you describe yourself? What words do you use?
- At what level have you been examining that failure: too shallow, too global, or at the level where change is possible?
- What specific decisions, patterns or beliefs contributed to it? What could be different next time?
- How does Jesus’ prayer for Peter, made before he fell, change the way you think about your own failures?
- Is there someone whose struggle you understand because of what you have been through? How might you “strengthen thy brethren”?
This Week
Choose one failure that still weighs on you. Write three short lists on a single page. First, “What I actually did,” described specifically and honestly. Second, “What was not mine,” naming the part others played, without excusing yourself. Third, “What will change,” listing one or two concrete safeguards or habits. Pray over the page, read Luke 22:31-32 aloud, and share the third list with one trusted believer who can help you keep it.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank You that You prayed for me before I ever fell, and that You speak of my return before I have even turned back. I confess my failures to You honestly, without hiding and without blaming others. Show me the specific things that need to change, and give me grace to change them. Deliver me from the lie that my failure is my identity. Where I have harmed others, help me to make what amends I can. Lift me up when I fall, as You have promised the righteous. And when I have turned back, use what I have learned to strengthen my brothers and sisters. Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.