The Symbolism Surrounding Peter's Denial of Christ

 

Today as my wife and I listened to another powerful message from Pastor John Stickl at Valley Creek Church, God opened my eyes to some amazing revelations when he was continuing a series titled "It is Finished", (It is Finished, Separation), (It is Finished, Striving) (It is Finished, Shame) a reference to Christ's last words on earth as he was crucified. That simple phrase, just four syllables, so indelibly changed out relationship with God. The series has been very enlightening and full of hope, but more on that at another time.

Last Sunday May 4th, John spoke of how Jesus told Peter how he would deny him 3 times before the cock crowed. Peter, a large strong and powerful man because of his many years of fishing, was petulent and rash, assured Jesus he would not. In fact John would deny you before me. Everyone else maybe but never me. Not surprisingly he of course denied Christ 3 times, once to a servant girl who wasn't even an adolescent. The third time he denied Him, the cock crowed and Peter locked eyes with Jesus.

Can you imagine the shame and pain he felt? Peter ran away, in pain and anguish, crying, and returned to his fishing, no doubt trying to forget what had just happened.

As a foreshadow of how He acts with you and me today, Jesus pursued his disciples and came upon Peter fishing, Jesus calls out to the men on the boat in John 21:5 asking "Children, have you caught any fish?" to which they answered "No." Jesus then tells them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. Following His direction they cast the net on the other side and caught so many fish they were unable to easily pull it into their boat.

That's when God revealed to me somethings I had not seen before in this passage, and the significance of this simple interaction was quite stunning to me.

The first thing that struck me was when they stopped relying on their EARTHLY knowledge their catch was far greater than they could have hoped for, and in fact more than they could handle. Understanding how these men thought, I can only imagine their amazement at how this stranger could so impact their results despite their many years of experience. And oh, by the way, the width of the boat being no greater than maybe 15 feet seemingly was all the difference in the world. Amazing.  But such is what happens when we stop thinking and using the world experience we have and LISTEN to what God would have us to do WHEN He would have us do it.

Second, He of course changed WHERE they fished, and perhaps even to teach them to go one more time even though they thought they had already tried that place. Perhaps the place was right but the timing was not, underscoring the importance of everything being in God's timing, and how He reveals to us what we need when we need it.  This of course a key part of the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day our daily bread". Give us today the Word You would have me to hear and sustain me.

Third, I think it was clear this was a hint of things to come, when Jesus told Peter to follow Him and He would make him a fisher of men. The catch they experienced with Jesus' direction was greater than they alone could handle. So prophetic about what the future held for the work they were about to embark upon, and the groundwork they were about to lay.  Just as God promised Abraham in Genesis 15:5 your descendants will be more numerous than the stars in the sky

Lastly, I thought about the significance of the previous stories about Jesus blessing a couple of fish and feeding thousands. How far then would these "fish" (the men the disciples had shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with and brought into the fold of believers) the disciples caught and brought to the Lord go with the blessings of Jesus? How many lives would they impact with His Word and guidance? How much light from His Kingdom would they be able to bring?

Far enough to fulfill the prophecy He gave Abraham. And then some.

A lack of Grace: 5 Things we can Learn When Someone Expects Perfection in us

Learn from the past and quickly leave it there
to look to the future

When we seek or expect perfection in others we encounter in life we set ourselves up for disappointment and the other person for failure. This past week a customer made that abundantly clear to me.

As an internet or e-commerce director, my responsibility is to drive my store's profitability through a digital medium: To put our best foot forward through a customer's perspective via our website, email communication or the phone. A basic part of the email standpoint is to use effective email directly to each individual per their inquiry (basically to ensure we answer any question a potential customer may have given us) or to use a mass emailing to elicit a response. Mass emailing must be targeted unless I want to run the risk of a high opt-out rate which would lead to ISP's or Internet Service Providers like Yahoo!, MSN and AOL to view our IP address as a SPAM generator.  This I do and have done for years. In fact, I have probably sent out more than 500,000 emails in my career to prospective and current customers. This week was much the same as any other communication.

For those of you in a position of responsibility, you know you have many distractions- your people, contemporaries, supervisors, owners, manufacturers, customers, your daily process, etc., etc., etc.  In other words, MANY distractions. For those of you who are not supervisors, you have many distractions as well: Life, home, friends, etc. I am no different.

With the Christmas holiday right around the corner and then the end of the year next, I had been aiming to send out a mass email to our unsold prospects, and had been trying all day to get it written and compiled before it was too late in the day on Monday the 23rd of December. Unfortunately, I had been unable to complete this task due to many distractions until around 4:00 that afternoon. Long after I knew people would be reading this email at their morning break at work.

A couple of hours later, I received a very threatening voice mail on my mobile phone that if I wanted "my side of the story" to be heard on a "national article about the dealership" and to be named in it myself, I was to call back before the end of the night.  I normally don't do well when people try to threaten me- after having been under direct fire before words have little effect in causing me any anxiety. Out of managerial duty and curiosity I returned the call and the person confirmed it was him- we shall call him Larry.

Larry started on a line of questioning like he was an attorney so I was quickly on the guard, and I asked him what he in fact did for a living. He informed me he writes articles for national magazines like Time and such. Terrific.

I asked how I could help him and he started to tell me how I had lied to him. Okay sir, you now have my attention.

"How did I do that to you?" I asked.

"By emailing me that I had previously made an inquiry by email to buy a car.  I had not had I?"

"No sir, you did not. I see you were in for service previously, and had not made an inquiry about a purchase. That was my mistake."

But he persisted and again said I lied to him. I told him I had made a mistake and it was an oversight for which I held myself responsible.

The third time he called me a liar I pushed back hard. "THAT is enough!" I said. "You will not call me a liar again. I have owned up to the mistake, I have apologized repeatedly, what more can I do? What more do you want from me?"

It was at that exact moment I realized I was being attacked by evil. God had given me the patience and words to endure this withering assault against my character, my store, my job and my family.

His mood instantly changed and we spent the next 30 minutes talking about his experiences while photographing various topics. I viewed his website and some of his images and I couldn't help but think to myself "I'm the liar?" Every one of his photos were no doubt photographed with high performance SLR cameras with filters to capitalize and emphasize the lighting. Perhaps even digital manipulation.

In other words, every one of those photographs, as they were depicted, never truly happened.  Ironic.

I even went on to edify him, lauding his vast experience and accomplishments, and thanked him for his insight and bringing this to my attention. I don't think he knew quite what to do.

After hanging up I was quite upset, not quite angry, but still shaken. Surprisingly, I was not nearly as agitated as I would have ordinarily been.

When my GM came in the following day, I knew he was going to be calling the customer back so I gave him back-fill from my experience and he just smirked, shaking his head.  He went on to tell me how this "gentleman" came to be our customer.

He had come in just a couple of days before I started in August, and complained about how he was not treated well with two of our competitive stores, one of which has written a book on customer service. He had come in for a major service and insisted on meeting the mechanics whom would be working on his car. Not a bad idea.

Bending over backwards to earn his business, Ken asked the customer if our manufacturer had offered him any sort of coupon for his experience and he said no, they had not. So Ken then directs the service department to sell the service at cost for him.  Then right in front of Ken, this person pulls out a $500 coupon from the manufacturer and hands it to the service writer.

"Wait, I thought you said they didn't give you a coupon" my GM asked him.

"Oh yeah, well, I bitched a little more and they sent me one. I just want to get the best deal possible."

No, you just wanted to lie and steal from a company in the auspices of good faith.

This made me even angrier than I was before. A low-life scum bag like this accuses ME of lying. Someone who has never amounted to much of anything, probably never will, trying to pull someone else down to make himself feel better. His inflated resume is just that- inflated. Surely someone whom has contributed to TIME magazine for example would rank somewhere in search results, but no. The ONLY references I could find for him were the aforementioned website of his and an introductory page about him on an equine-focused website.

It is clear this person is devoid of a moral compass and peace. He is clearly hurting and probably doesn't know why. All I can do is forgive him and pray for him.

Some lessons to take from this encounter:

1. Hurting people hurt other people. 
2. The more someone tells you how great they are, the less likely it is they have accomplished anything they are building up in your mind.
3. Liars think other people lie. (Or at least think sales people will sit quietly and take it)
4. God extends us grace though we do not deserve it. Some people expect perfection from others and extend no grace. Perhaps they enjoy seeing the other person fail or they are purposely creating an environment to exploit to their advantage.
5. Even when confronted with a situation like this, with His word and guidance, a Christian can defend themselves AND not destroy the other person with their spoken word.

Life's Lessons

"Experience is the hardest teacher. It first gives the test, then the lesson." - Anonymous

Perhaps no other time in our history short of a world war and the Great Depression, has such a challenging time faced us. Perhaps the challenges are even greater today than previously. With the proliferation of the Internet and information sharing, more and more people are connected and yet disconnected at the same time. More information is shared and forgotten more quickly than ever

Ken McCown photograph: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenmccown

before. Workers and managers alike are faced with an ever-increasing complexity of information sources and media outlets that we are approaching information overload. Kids today are not happy unless they are playing a game online with their XBox, listening to music or a video on their iPod while texting a friend with the t.v. on in the background. Their minds are constantly engaged with information they process. Perhaps they will never know or appreciate the tranquility my parents' generation knows. Our lives progressively grow more complicated and stressful, yet we want more technology to help us DO MORE (keep up) so we can stay on top of everything.

I digress in an attempt to paint a brief scenario of what our generation has been raised on. They have not faced the challenges or sacrifices our parents and grand parents did during the huge personal crises that were raised from the conflicts of man or the collapse of an economy. But their challenges are just as real. When the stock market collapsed in 1929, there was not awidespread loss around the world as we recently saw with the "financial crisis" on Wall Street in October. Militarily, we are in more theaters of conflict than WWII, and face more enemies than at any time in our history. The enemy is faceless, the battlefield is not readily defined with neat lines drawn on a map in a general's office. The threat can be virtual in an assault on servers or even our financial network as we experienced recently with 9/11 and now the credit crisis.

The point is, in all these instances, there are many lessons, and it is frustratingly apparent we may learn from our lessons, but we don't seem to REMEMBER them! Right after 9-11, Senators sang God Bless America, and with righteous indignation demanded the parties responsible be brought to justice. Within a few short weeks, it was partisan politics as usual. Sniping the President about the war on terror after many of the snipers voted for military action. And now that we are in it, they are wanting to cut and run for political expediency crying "We can't win. There is no hope. The extra troops won't make a difference. They are wanting to come home." Remember some of those comments? They seem pathetic with what has transpired in the last few months.
Iraqis now control most of Iraq, oil is flowing, their budget is bursting at the seams, the infrastructure is gaining strength every day. The surge did work. Senator McCain and the others supporting the surge now look like geniuses. They will simply tell you they listened to the experts- the guys on the ground.
Why is this so hard? We took the test and passed it, however painful it may have been. We have since gathered our lessons, and have tried to learn from them. I just hope we don't forget those lessons, but every day, I fear we grow more and more complacent.