One of my favorite things about Jesus is that He pursues us in every single circumstance, no matter what kind of mess you might be in. One of the truths, I think, unfortunately in life –and this is something my old mentor told me– is that we are either exiting a problem, going into a problem, or we’re in a problem. It sounds kind of sad, but life is actually full of problems. You cannot escape them. You cannot escape conflict. But one of the beautiful things about Jesus is that He loves to be in the midst of those situations with us.
And I want to use the life of Jesus’s disciple, Peter, one of my favorite disciples, because he messed up so much, and I think we all can relate to Peter and draw encouragement from his life. If you think about Peter, you know his life. He was invited by Jesus on the last few nights of Jesus’ life to go and pray in the garden of Gethsemane with Jesus as He groaned and cried out to the Father, because He knew what was about to happen; He was going to the cross. And Peter gets invited as one of three disciples to go and pray in the garden with Jesus, and Jesus says, “Keep watch. I’m going to go pray.” And the three disciples fall asleep. Peter falls asleep. Jesus comes and wakes them up. He goes back to His praying, the disciples fall asleep again. They can’t even stay up to pray with Jesus on what is easily and by far the hardest and worst night of His life on earth.
Then we all know what happens. Then Peter goes, and he denies Jesus three times. His situation went from bad to worse. And then what makes it even worse for him is his hero, Jesus, is crucified and killed. And now he has fallen asleep, couldn’t keep watch and pray with his hero. Then he denies Him three times, and now his hero is dead.
What does Peter do? He goes back to what is familiar. He goes back to fishing. And what I love about this moment is that Peter is out in the boat and Jesus approaches him on the shore, and Peter is far off in the boat, and Jesus calls out to him and says, “Peter, throw your net on the other side!” And something happens in Peter’s heart. And he goes, this reminds me of Jesus. He asked me to throw the net on the other side at the beginning. And I believe that something awakened in Peter’s heart that day, and it was this truth that no matter where I go, no matter what I go through, He will always pursue me. He will always find me.
And Jesus redefined a really terrible situation in Peter’s life. He had to have been bummed out, and He turned it into something beautiful. He turned his brokenness into beauty.
And so I want to pray over you today that you would have the awareness that God is with you no matter what it is you’re going through right now, whether it be a terrible situation or the worst situation. Jesus is on your beach and He’s calling out to you.
And so, Lord, I just thank you for whoever’s watching this no matter what they’re going through, Father, I thank you that nothing can hold you back from approaching them. And I ask, Lord, for divine encounters for those who are listening today, and that our brokenness would be turned into your beauty. In the name of Jesus, amen.