Failure Is Not Fatal

Acts 2:14

Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, “Listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residents of Jerusalem! Make no mistake about this.

Walter Payton, or as we Bears fans know him, “Sweetness,” was one of the greatest running backs in the history of the National Football League. Payton could do it all, he ran around, and even through, people, he threw the ball, he caught the ball. An easy pick for the NFL Hall of Fame.

A laundry list of Bears quarterbacks handed Walter Payton the ball 3,838 times, and he ran for a total of 16,726 yards. He scored a total of 110 touchdowns.

For his career, Payton averaged 4.4 yards every time he carried the ball. That means that for all 3,838 carries, eleven muscle bound behemoths from the Vikings, or the Packers, or some other lesser team than the Bears, knocked Walter Payton down every 4.4 yards. And after 3,838 hits by these spittle and dirt covered monsters, Payton bounced back up and went to his huddle so he could try again.

You see, if you stop trying after your first 4.4 yard carry, you never get to 3,838. You don’t become a Hall Of Famer. You’re just another schmo who couldn’t handle it.

Peter had a very public failure when he denied Jesus, and I am sure more than a few people wrote him off. But Peter got back up. He tried again.

They could have left Peter’s failure out of the Bible, just swept it under the carpet. But God had a lesson he wanted us to learn through Peter: Failure is not fatal, but giving up is.

Peter could have stayed on the sidelines in Acts 2. Who would listen to him, he was a failure. But he didn’t. He answered the call, got up, and went back to work. Another 4.4 yards closer to 3,838.

Every time you fail, your are that much closer to success, as long as you don’t give up.

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