John 18:25–27

Now Simon Peter stood and warmed himself. Therefore they said to him, “You are not also one of His disciples, are you?”

He denied it and said, “I am not!”

One of the servants of the high priest, a relative of him whose ear Peter cut off, said, “Did I not see you in the garden with Him?” Peter then denied again; and immediately a rooster crowed.

A rooster crowing is a traditional wake-up call and that’s exactly what happens to Peter here. The sound snaps Peter back into awareness of what He just did and how Jesus had predicted it.

The other three gospels record that Peter wept bitterly after this. He has only himself to blame, and that blame is unbearable.

Peter is on a long path to spiritual maturity. Here we see one of his greatest failures along that path.

But those failures aren’t setbacks; they’re set-forwards.

The memory of his failures will push Peter to higher and higher levels of maturity and commitment.

This should teach and encourage us. We all fail, but few of us fail our Lord as spectacularly as Peter did. So take heart; your failures are not fatal. In fact, they’re healthy.

There’s a deep lesson in this. We all have a tendency to want to forget negative things, especially our failures. That’s understandable, but that can keep us from learning the lessons our failures are designed to teach.

Without getting obsessive, we should make a point of remembering and analyzing our failures. If we ignore them, or otherwise push them away, we gain nothing and set the stage for making the same mistakes again.

Conversely, if we look for the lesson, even dig for it, we can uncover pearls of wisdom. Always stop and wonder if God might be trying to teach you something. He usually is.

By searching for God’s message in events, we open our eyes to spiritual things. This can be comforting, as we discover purpose and meaning in what was otherwise something we’d rather forget.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. — Romans 8:28

If we believe Romans 8:28, our approach to all things should be to work with them, not against them.

These Monday—Friday DEEPs are written by Mike Slay. The Saturday DEEPs are written by Matt Richardson. To subscribe to all the DEEPs click here:

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The weekly study guides, which include the Monday–Friday devotionals plus related questions for discussion or meditation, are available for download here:

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV stands for the English Standard Version. © Copyright 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NIV stands for The Holy Bible, New International Version®. © Copyright 1973 by International Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved. KJV stands for the King James Version.