God doesn’t say oops.

I love that old movie, Frequency, with Jim Caviezel and Dennis Quaid.  If you haven’t seen it, check it out.  I won’t give away particulars, but the gist is that, due to a strange aurora borealis, John (Caviezel) is using an old Ham radio set and finds that he is able to contact his father (Quaid) some thirty years in the past, PRIOR to John’s father perishing in his job as a firefighter.  Because of this, John warns his father, his dad survives, and the plot thickens from there.  Great flick, on several levels.

Can you only imagine what it would be like if we could be warned in advance of particular events that were going to happen?  And do you wonder if we really could change them, or not? 

So reading this account of Jesus talking to Peter is a bit intriguing.  I do just love Simon Peter.  For all his presumptuous bluster, he had a really good heart.  Jesus must have thought so, too, since He included him in His inner circle, so to speak.  I find it interesting that Jesus said this just before the crowd came to arrest Him:

“I tell you the truth, Peter— before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.”

I don’t know how I would have responded to this statement.  Would I get the heck outta Dodge just to prevent denying my Lord?  And wouldn’t that, in itself, be a type of denial anyway?  I wonder why Peter stayed around—did he doubt Jesus’ prophecy, thinking that he would “be able to handle it”?  (if anyone would think that, it would have been Peter!)

Don’t know.  The main idea here that brings me pause to comfort and contemplate is that Jesus knew.  He knew beforehand that Peter, His right hand man, was going to stumble. 

He knew beforehand that I would also, and you, and my children, and your children.  He knew beforehand that there would be some warnings that we would ignore to our own peril. 

And He went to the cross anyway, or maybe I should say “because of”.  There is no denial of Christ, no falling away, no blessing abused that cannot be fixed at the cross.  I’m always encouraged by imperfect Peter!  His eminent sin was even put in his face, and he still did it!  Yet the restoration of relationship with his Lord was complete.  Who am I to disagree with that?

If I did, I would be disagreeing with the Lord Himself.  (And that would be my oops, not God’s!)

John 13:38  Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.