After filling out my Men’s NCAA National Basketball Tournament bracket not long ago, I felt like I had a pretty good chance of doing well this year. The last few years, I have done a rather good job and this year I really didn’t expect much different. However, there are always things that happen in the tournament that are unforeseen by me. And now that the tournament is coming to a close, I know that I’m going to be getting last place in the majority of the pools I have joined in. I don’t mind too much because I’m not really losing anything, but I really don’t like getting last at anything. It can be discomforting knowing that people who don’t even watch basketball are probably destroying me with their brackets.
Nevertheless, I have to move on and somehow try to learn from losing. It’s something that many people struggle with. It’s a little easier when I’m the one analyzing a situation and teaching someone else the lesson they can learn from a situation, but when the lesson is for me, that makes things a lot tougher. However, this is something we all need to learn to do. We need to take the tough situations, issues, and problems in our lives and learn from them. We can’t let them get us down and keep us from bouncing back and living for Christ.
Think about Peter and what he went through. If you open your Bible to 1 Peter and read this short book, then go back and read about Peter in the Gospels, look at some of the things you would find.
The man who called himself “a witness of Christ’s sufferings” was not there when Jesus was hanging on the cross; he was hiding in fear. The man who calls us to be “eager to serve” remained seated while Jesus washed everyone’s feet. The man who tells us that we should be “clear minded and self-controlled so that [we] can pray,” he fell asleep while Jesus was sweating blood. The man who so boldly tells us to “submit [ourselves] for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men” chopped a Roman soldier’s ear off in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Peter took Jesus’ correction to heart and became a changed man. He examined himself. He took time to think about the person he was becoming. He addressed his situations, issues, and problems and became a man of God.
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