John 21:3 Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.” “We’ll come, too,” they all said. So they went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts” – Winston Churchill.
Failure is part of success. Failure identifies our weakness and gives us an opportunity to grow through the challenge. Failure also develops the emotional muscle of resilience to bounce back despite the setbacks. Failures teach more lessons than success. There are two reactions to failure: we either recede or proceed. Our emotional wellbeing plays a vital role in growing through failure and developing resilience. However, low self-esteem, self-blame, shame and self-centeredness are enemies to resilience. Wallowing in failure, beating oneself over and over again will keep us stuck in our mess. This will lead to a very poor sense of self-worth, regret and obsessive thinking about oneself. It is important to assess the causes and to take responsibility for our errors. Identifying the cause of the failure is vital to make the necessary corrections and to repair and build emotional resilience. Regret will make us flounder in the failure but resilience will help us to bounce back and progress after a breakdown.
Peter failed not once or twice but thrice! He repeated the same mistake over and over again. Peter disowned Jesus thrice during the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus. The shame of his failure made him hide behind a closed door. He did not even make it to the foot of the cross but drowned himself in shame, guilt and stigma. After the resurrection of Jesus and even after Jesus appeared to them behind closed doors, Peter decided to dumb his emotions and go back to his previous profession. He went fishing and the other fishermen in the crew, Thomas, Nathanael, John, James and another two unnamed disciples went with him. Guilt will make us go backward and foster the wounds of our failure but resilience will make us step forward and resist the temptation of the self-inflicted pain of regret.
Emotional Wellbeing and Resilience:
1. Remorsefulness: Remorse and regret are necessary emotions to realize our mistakes. The causes and effects of failures must be analyzed not to live in regret but to repent. Regret is just feeling sorry about what happened and numbing our feelings with addictive habits including overworking. Peter went back fishing to forget about his failure.
2. Repentance: Repentance is to make a right-about-turn. Repentance is to realize our mistakes and to correct and reset our lifestyle. True repentance is to make lifestyle changes: changing entertainments, disciplining routines, blocking sites or contacts that distract. Repentance means to flee from everything that would pull us back into the past failure.
3. Resilience: Resilience is the toughness to spring back into shape to move forward. The lessons of the past failure become the food that energizes us to become persistent and resilient.
Building the muscle of resilience makes us emotionally strong and burly.
Proverbs 24:16a For a righteous man will fall seven times, and rise again.
Prayer: Dear Holy Spirit, help me to pick up lessons when I fall and rise up with resilience and tenacity to move forward. Amen.
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