Ever feel completely inadequate to do the tasks God has chosen for you?

This happens to me pretty often. And by “pretty often” I mean “every single day.”

Walking in love? I trip. Constantly. Like a gangly newborn colt.

Being a fisher of men? I usually can’t even get the bait on the line, and the nets are always tangled.

The bread of idleness that the Proverbs 31 woman doesn’t eat? It’s because I already had her share. And mine. And several other people’s. And then I took a post–carb nap.

I feel grossly inadequate for the tasks God has set out for me. I don’t know why He thinks it’s a good idea to give me any sort of responsibility. Hasn’t He seen how impatient I am? How quick to speak? How easily tempted?

I mess up all the time. I am so far from perfect you’d think I only had a vague idea what the word meant. There is no way I’m equipped to spread the good news.

But during times like these, I think of one person: Peter.

Have you ever paid much attention to what Peter does and says in the Bible? We tend to think of him as the apostle who built the church, but do we stop to consider everything he does in the time of Christ?

Talk about someone who messes up!

Sometimes, I just cringe for Peter. I just cringe for him. I want one of the other apostles to turn and say, “Shh!” before he opens his big mouth or give him an elbow to the ribs or something.

His life before Jesus is uneventful enough. He’s a fisherman, one of the ones called to be “fishers of men.” He pretty much drops everything and follows that wandering rabbi, taking his brother with him and letting his new friend borrow his fishing boat every now and then to use as a floating pulpit when the crowds get too big.

He’s chosen by Jesus to be an apostle. Kind of a big deal, no?

And there are so many things that Peter does well. So very many.

He hears Jesus preach and sees Him heal the afflicted. He is present at the Last Supper. He gets to witness the Transfiguration. When Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?,” it’s Peter who gets to answer, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” He gets to be one of the first two apostles who see Jesus after He’s risen. He even gets to walk on water.

Pretty great, right? Perfect embodiment of faith?

Guess again.

When he sees Jesus after He’s risen, he doesn’t realize who it is. Jesus clears this up later, of course, but it’s one of those times I cringe because I imagine Peter just face–palming after it happens.

And the Last Supper? Probably one of those nights Peter would rather forget, for more than just the obvious reasons. Jesus stoops to wash Peter’s feet, and Peter reacts the way most of us probably would. Jesus? Washing our feet? Like a servant?

Absolutely not. Unacceptable.

So Peter says what I think I would say in the same situation: “Thou shalt never wash my feet.”

And Jesus’ response? Another one of those moments when I cringe. “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.”

In trying to do what he thought was right, Peter messed up. So he has to backtrack a bit. He says, “Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head.”

Then, of course, there’s Jesus, always with the most loving, gracious response. And in the midst of my cringing for Peter, I’m sobbing for Christ.

We all know what happens the next day. If you’re like me, it’s probably hard for you to pay attention to anyone other than Jesus during the Crucifixion. I’m so wracked with guilt and overwhelmed with love that I can’t really focus on the other people involved in what’s happening.

But then there’s Peter. And you know what he’s doing? Messing up, of course.

First of all, he cuts off the ear of the servant of the high priest. I can’t really blame him; Jesus has just been arrested, and Peter is pretty upset about it. He reacts in a very human way.

Honestly, I don’t even cringe here. I kind of cheer.

But then Jesus. Oh, Jesus. What does He do?

He heals the high priest’s servant. Heals him.

Of course He does. And that’s when I cringe.

Peter’s reactions don’t improve much from there. He denies Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times. And Jesus knew he would do this—yet another reason that Last Supper was so uncomfortable for him—and he still does it.

Personally, I like to think that if the Son of God told me how I was going to mess up *before* I did, I would consider that a fair warning and get my act together.

(But I probably wouldn’t. I’m far too much like Peter to avoid it.)

Oh, and that whole walking on water thing? It’s not what it sounds like. The whole reason he gets to do that is because he asks for proof that it’s Jesus out there on the water already, and he’s walking along just fine until the wind—wind, mind you, the same wind Jesus just calmed—is enough to distract him and leave him scared that he’ll drown, and he is the reason we have that phrase “o thou of little faith.”

Not exactly his best moment.

But what happens next in Peter’s story? What does God do with the apostle of little faith?

Well, the answer might surprise you. If you were under the impression that God considered the apostles in terms of the strength of their resumes, how many times they’d been Apostle of the Month, how early they showed up to the Mount every morning—that sort of job promotion thing—and then chose the apostle who’d been the most perfect all along to be the one to build the church, well, you’d be wrong.

He chose Peter.

Peter.

Peter who was always messing up. Peter of little faith.

He chose Peter to build the church.

He also saved him from jail and gave him the keys to heaven, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

God chose Peter.

And you know what? It went well (at least for a while). Peter preached on Pentecost and baptized thousands of people. He chose a replacement for Judas. He wrote a couple of beautiful epistles. God knew what He was doing.

And Peter? He never lost his humility. I imagine he learned quite a bit from messing up all the time, and he never lost focus on the true purpose of his calling. Even when he was crucified, he asked to be crucified upside down because he knew he didn’t deserve the same death as his Messiah.

Peter was constantly screwing up, always putting his foot in his mouth, and often upsetting the very Christ he was called to follow. And to make matters worse, his actions were being recorded for all posterity! Talk about lessons in humility.

I think the greatest lesson we can learn from Peter is that God does not choose perfect people to spread His Word. He knows that perfect people don’t exist, and He knows that our imperfections are shaping us to be loving, accepting humans who will do the best we can in this fallen world. He gave us Peter, this example of how God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, because He knew we needed a figure we could connect with.

Even when he makes us cringe.

Update, 10.21
I’ve been reading Mended by Angie Smith, and she has a beautiful chapter about Peter. If he’s tugging at your heartstrings, please go read Angie’s words. So much more eloquent than mine.