When, Not If

"And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers." (Luke 22:32)

Notice what Jesus assumes. He does not say, if you turn again. He says, when. He is speaking to a man who has not yet failed, about a failure he can already see coming, and he is calmly making plans for what that man will do on the far side of it. Not if you come back, but when you come back, go and hold somebody else up.

There is no shaming in that sentence, and there is no lowering of the standard either. There is only a Savior who knows exactly what Peter is, and exactly what Peter will do, and exactly what Peter will become afterward, and who is already assigning him work. No matter how low or how far you have fallen, you can stand again in the keeping power of Jesus. You can turn back. You can lift your eyes to the cross.

But you cannot lift your eyes to the cross while you refuse to take them off yourself. That is the whole obstacle, and it is worth naming precisely. It is not the sin. The sin is handled, paid, finished. It is the pride that insists on staying down in the dirt inspecting the sin, because to get up and walk back would mean admitting that Someone else already covered it. So get up. Someone further along the road is waiting for you to strengthen them, and you cannot do it from down there.