Not the End of the Story

R&B artist Aaliyah famously sang: “And if at first you don't succeed, then dust yourself off and try again”. Many people don't know this, but those lyrics harken back to the Bible, in the story where Jesus sends his disciples out to independently proclaim the Good News: “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.”

This is never an easy thing to do. Especially if you’re committed. And even more so if you’ve fallen down hard. And Simon Peter had fallen down. As hard as a man can. He had denied Jesus three times—just as Jesus predicted. And then Jesus died. Imagine carrying that kind of shame: public failure with no chance to make it right—or to shake it off…

But the story doesn’t end in failure, nor in biting the dust. After the resurrection, Jesus meets His disciples on the shore. Over breakfast, He gently pulls Simon Peter aside—not to scold him, but to ask a question—three questions, in fact, all the same question. Three times: “Do you love Me?” One for each denial.

This is more than forgiveness and just shaking off dust. Jesus isn’t just offering Peter a cleanly broomed slate—He’s calling him into something deeper. “Feed my sheep", He says. It’s a strange command to give a man who had just failed so publicly. But that’s grace: Jesus entrusts broken people with sacred things.

What makes this moment so moving is that Jesus doesn’t pretend the failure never happened. He restores Peter through the memory, not around it. Grace doesn’t erase our story—it redeems it. So many of us try to outrun our mistakes. We fear they disqualify us. But Jesus meets us in those very places of regret and speaks a new calling. He doesn’t just dust you off, He washes you clean. Like Simon Peter, we’re not just forgiven. We’re re-commissioned.

Where in your failures do you long for Jesus to be asking, “Do you love Me?”—not to test you, but to restore you?