“Jesus said to him, ‘Get up, take up your bed, and walk.’” (John 5:8)
My dad was my first hockey coach. It was a good thing, because I wasn’t very good. I probably shouldn’t even have made the team, but when your “old man” is the coach, I guess you’ve gotta make the team. I mean, you can’t cut your kid, right? I remember asking him about those early years. He told me, “You were a terrible skater!” I thought to myself, “Thanks, Dad?!” He went on to say, “You fell down a lot … but you always got right back up.” Honestly, that’s the secret to winning in Christianity and life itself: whoever GETS UP the most wins.
Mistakes and failures are part of sports and life. The very best athletes of all time failed tremendously but learned to get back up again. Babe Ruth held the home run record (714) for decades, but did you know he also held the strikeout record as well? He struck out 1,330 times! That’s a lot of “getting up”! Ruth’s motto: “Never allow the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game!” Ty Cobb holds the all-time career batting-average record at .366. If you’re doing the math, that means he failed to get a hit more than six times out of ten. That’s a lot of failure to deal with, and he’s considered one of the very best!
Michael Jordan, the “G.O.A.T.,” failed a bunch. He says it’s how he became the “Greatest of All Time.” He missed thousands of shots, lost hundreds of games, and missed game-winning shots. He failed over and over, and said that is why he succeeded. It sounds like he learned to “get up.”
It’s not only athletes who fail. All the icons in human history had a Ph.D. in getting up. Walt Disney was reportedly fired from a newspaper job after criticism of his creativity. Thomas Edison endured countless unsuccessful experiments before developing a practical incandescent light bulb. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the very company he helped found. J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter manuscript was rejected by multiple publishers before finally being accepted. All of these icons went on to do amazing things, but not before learning to “get up.”
The Bible is filled with flawed men and women. The great “prophet” Homer Simpson had this revelation as he set down his Bible: “All these people are a mess … except this one guy (Jesus).” Many, if not all, of the heroes of the Christian faith had epic failures. Moses, David, Abraham—all of them sinned horribly. It’s not that they were perfect people. They were just great at getting up.
The Apostle Peter’s failure was not just epic; it was personal. On the night of the Last Supper, Jesus sat with His disciples and broke bread. That night, Jesus explained to Peter, “Tonight, you will deny Me three times before the rooster crows.” Peter vehemently denied it, and they headed off to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. Soon afterward, Jesus was arrested and all the disciples scattered. Peter followed from a distance. Jesus was beaten, bloodied, and mocked as He was transported across the courtyard. Peter, warming himself by a fire, was accused of knowing Jesus:
“Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, ‘This man also was with him.’ But he denied it, saying, ‘Woman, I do not know him.’ And a little later someone else saw him and said, ‘You also are one of them.’ But Peter said, ‘Man, I am not.’ And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, ‘Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.’”
“But Peter said, ‘Man, I do not know what you are talking about.’ And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, ‘Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.’ And he went out and wept bitterly.” (Luke 22:56–62)
See what I mean by epic and personal? Honestly, I don’t know how you recover from that one. Have you ever been there before? I know I have. Those moments in life when you ask yourself, “How could I?” or “I can’t believe I did that.” You go from a sense of overwhelming guilt to crushing shame. It’s no longer just that what you did was wrong; now you believe you’re wrong. Peter felt the crushing weight of sin and shame. He would go on to do great things for God, but not before learning to get up.
“Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (1 Timothy 6:12)
The Apostle Paul compares our life to a fight—the fight of faith. Guilt and shame will knock you out of the game of life if you don’t fight back. Your failures don’t get to define you. Jesus does! As long as you get up and learn to fight one more round.
“Gentleman” Jim Corbett became heavyweight champion of the world on September 7, 1892, knocking out the seemingly invincible John L. Sullivan in the 21st round. That’s not a typo—they fought for 21 rounds! Today, a sanctioned championship boxing match is just 12 rounds. Corbett also fought Peter Jackson in an exhausting 61-round draw. A famous passage attributed to Corbett captures the heart of getting up:
“Fight one more round. When your feet are so tired that you have to shuffle back to the center of the ring, fight one more round. When your arms are so tired that you can hardly lift your hands to come on guard, fight one more round. When your nose is bleeding and your eyes are black and you are so tired you wish your opponent would crack you one on the jaw and put you to sleep, fight one more round—remembering that the man who always fights one more round is never whipped.” —Jim Corbett
The Apostle Peter decided to fight one more round. He’d go on to do amazing things! He preached on the Day of Pentecost, and about 3,000 people received his message and were baptized. He became a leading figure in the early Church and even raised a woman named Tabitha from the dead. None of that happens if he doesn’t fight one more round—if he doesn’t get up. It’s how he won in life, and how you will too. Whoever gets up the most wins!