I have been given the privilege of being your guest speaker, so sit back and get comfortable—shouldn’t take longer than an hour or so. Here, for you graduates of 2023, is my speech titled: “Seasons, Doors, Nets, and Failure”.
If you have read any amount of quality poetry, you quickly begin to realize that poets use the seasons to represent periods in a person’s life. Spring is youth and innocence. Summer is the move into more maturity, but still full of energy and life. Fall is the slowing down as experience has brought a richness, and winter is the time when life is more reflective. As Christians, the cycle, where spring always follows winter, reminds us that there is something wonderful after winter that we all look forward to—the spring of an eternity in heaven with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and all the loved ones who have gone on before us.
You, my dear seniors are beginning the move from spring to summer. You still have much of life ahead of you—unlike those of us who are 520 years old and in the fall of life—but you are leaving that period of youthful innocence. Adulthood has begun, and much experience awaits you. There are some things I want you to know.
Not all aspects of your life will be in the same season. You may have friendships that are continually in spring while others may have run through the seasons. There is nothing inherently wrong with either of these scenarios. God may be keeping one friendship alive and thriving while moving you on from another. He may be closing one door to open another. You may find this to be true in other aspects of your life. Certainly, tonight one door is closing—the one that kept you at home and under a parent’s roof—where things may have felt cozy and warm and safe—and another door is opening. That may feel uncertain and frightening, but you don’t have to fear the unknown because God is already there. He’s with you here, and he’s waiting for you there. He knows what your future holds even though you don’t. Trust Him because, inevitably, that future—dare I say it—will hold failure.
The one thing I can absolutely guarantee you, as I stand here before you wanting to protect you (as your parents, undoubtedly, want to do the same), is that at some point in the future, you will meet with failure. Maybe at a time that seems most critical. It, (failure), might be on a final exam, or it might be a whole class. It might be a relationship, or, down the road, it might be in business. You might get laid off, or fired, or a business you start might fold. You might work really hard at something and want it to work out very badly, but you just can’t ever quite succeed at it. Something like this might have already happened to you, but “it” (that seemingly nefarious failure) might also be lurking around the corner . . . waiting for you. Failure does that. It waits. It lurks—ready to pounce on us when we least expect it. But sometimes failure hovers like a thick fog. Looming. Unavoidable. Inevitable; clouding our way, and, at times, causing paralyzing fear—the fear that keeps you from acting at all. We sometimes allow this paralysis to overtake us. But failure isn’t really as sinister as all that. We fear failure, but sometimes it’s just the avenue to success. It might just be one door closing, so that another one can open. Or so that we find another way around. That failure that you dread? The one that
paralyzes you? It might just be God closing a door; telling you to go around; try a different door altogether. You might, unknowingly, be stuck in borderland, and God wants you out in the Holy Wild. Don’t let the fear of failure or the closing of a door hold you back.
Plenty of people fail. It’s what happens next that really matters. I mean, you could decide—like a pig in mud—to wallow in the failure. Sometimes it feels good to wallow for awhile, but after too long? Well, the mud just starts to stink. It’s better to grab your bootstraps, gird your loins, and get back to the business of finding the open door.
If you had me for AP Language, you know that I expect real and specific examples, so let’s quickly look at some.
There are famous stories of people like Abraham Lincoln, who lost several elections, before becoming president, or Thomas Edison, who tried thousands of ways to make a light bulb before figuring out how to create one that actually worked.
But I want to talk about someone more current that you might not have heard of, even though she has quite a presence on social media. Emily Calandrelli, a scientist from a small town in West Virginia (the state), in fourth grade failed the “smart test”—the one that would allow her to take accelerated courses. She failed it because, among other things, at that time, she didn’t know the difference between a microscope and a telescope. She was so anxious about that test and wanted to take accelerated classes so badly, that she cried in the testing room. She knew she was failing the test, but there was nothing she could do about it. The door for accelerated classes closed for her. She never did test in, and, later, a teacher even told her that she wouldn’t be a good fit for honors science in high school. She didn’t let any of that stop her. She didn’t allow herself to wallow in self-pity. She studied and applied herself; she worked hard. Maybe “somebody” you know would say she exhibited grit.
Calandrelli never gave up. She applied to West Virginia University and was accepted. She received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. For some people, that might have been enough, but not for that little girl from small-town West Virginia who failed the fourth-grade smart test. She went on to pursue a master’s degree, and, now, actually holds two master’s degrees: one in Aeronautics and Astronautics, and another in Technology and Policy. Both degrees are from MIT, and she has worked at both MIT and at NASA. Known as “The Space Girl” on social media, Calandrelli has created TV shows and written books to encourage young children to become interested in and knowledgeable about various scientific fields of study. Her failure became the catalyst for her current career.
Let’s look at one more example—a Biblical one—a failure of faith. It’s one that I think often gets overlooked because of a grammatical oversight in many paraphrased versions and even some translated ones.
In Luke chapter 5, we read about the story of Simon, whom Jesus later called Peter, becoming a “fisher of men.” Simon Peter has been fishing all night with no results; Jesus gets in Peter’s boat to teach the crowds, and when he’s finished teaching Jesus says, “Let down your nets again; Peter does so and catches such a haul that he has to call out to others to help him. He falls at Jesus’s knees and declares that he is unworthy of such abundance and tells Jesus to depart from him. Isn’t that the gist of what we usually hear? Well, I want us to look at the story from the weird perspective of an AP English teacher with a purple pen in her hand, so, bear with me for a moment. I’m reading from the New King James version. I like it because it’s a somewhat modernized translation, rather than a paraphrased version. It sticks pretty closely to the original Greek. That’s important for this story.
Beginning at verse 5 of Luke 5:
So it was, as the multitude pressed about Him to hear the word of God, that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret, and saw two boats standing by the lake; but the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat.
When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”
But Simon answered and said to Him, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing; nevertheless, at Your word I will let down the net.”
And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So, they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”
For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.” So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him.
Did you catch it? Simon Peter had been washing his nets (plural) and Jesus said, “Let down your nets,” plural, but Simon said, “I’ll let down the net,” singular. And in the next verse, again, the singular, “They caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking.” When I saw that, I had to look up the original Greek words used here. It turns out, Peter was washing the diktya and Jesus said, “Let down your diktya,” the plural form of the Greek word for nets. And Peter’s response is “diktyon,” (the singular form, meaning net—just one) and, again, the Greek says the “diktyon” was breaking, demonstrating that Peter had, indeed, thrown only one net into the water. Diktya and diktyon are the same as the difference between criteria (plural) and criterion (singular).
So, now, let’s quickly look at this story from the perspective of Peter. He’s been out allnight fishing and hasn’t caught anything. He’s got to be frustrated and tired. He’s already cleaning his nets. Jesus asks Peter to take Him out in his boat, so Jesus can be heard by the people who have been pressing toward Him. Peter, this frustrated and tired man, for whatever reason, stops what he’s doing and agrees to take Jesus out away from the shore a little in his boat. We don’t know what Jesus was teaching because Luke doesn’t record that part, but obviously Jesus already has quite a following and he’s teaching, so it is, no doubt, NO doubt, something amazing that people need to hear. Simon is in the boat with Jesus because it’s his boat, so he’s hearing this teaching, but is he actually listening? Not sure. When Jesus finishes teaching, he says, “Hey, Simon, why don’t you go back out there into the deep water and let down your nets. You know, the ones you just cleaned and put back in your boat.”
Don’t you think Peter sighed (wouldn’t we all have sighed and maybe even rolled our eyes and huffed) as he responded, “I’ve been out there all night and haven’t caught anything.” Don’t you think Peter was thinking, “Who’s the fisherman here? I think I know what I’m doing. Who are you to tell me where to put out my nice, clean nets?” So Peter says, “Yeah, yeah. Alright. I’ll put out a net [aside] because I know I’m not going to catch anything, and I’m not getting all my nets dirty again.”
Then . . . the shock . . . the fish . . . so many that the net . . . the ONE net begins to break, and Peter has to ask for help. Sometimes, when Jesus asks you to do something for Him, you’ll have to ask for help from others, too. So, Peter looks at Jesus, and Peter knows he has failed this test of faith. I believe that’s why he throws himself down at Jesus’s knees and says, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.”
But Jesus simply says to Peter, without any condemnation, “Don’t be afraid. From now on you will catch men.” Jesus doesn’t condemn Peter, and he wants to use Peter anyway. No matter how you fail, or how many times you fail, God can and will still use you.
The door on Peter’s time as a fisherman had closed, even though he tried to reopen it after Jesus’s death on the cross, but Peter had been called by God to be a fisher of men. When God calls you to a new way, a new season, a new door, there is no going back to the old ways. And in Acts chapter 2, we see that Peter’s destiny was to be a fisher of men. After Peter preached his sermon, 3000 souls were added that day. Jesus, in essence, said to Peter, the fisherman, that crazy day on the beach, “You think that you’re accomplishing something good now, but I want you to accomplish something great. Follow me. Let down your nets. All of them. And even if you don’t, even if you only do it halfway, I still want you as my disciple.”
Fourteen years ago, Jesus said to me, “Let down your nets. I want you to build a school.” And I, at first, said, “Get behind me, Satan.”
I was full of fear, and I failed the initial test, I definitely had to ask for help, but here we all are. God closed the door on what I had been doing, to open the door on what He wanted me to start doing, and He, and others have been with me every step of the way. What was it that Jesus said to Peter? “Don’t be afraid.”
My dear graduates, Jesus is saying the same thing to you: “Let down your nets. All of them. Come out into the holy wild. Trust Me. And I will take you on the ride of your life, one that is exhilarating and frightening all at the same time. I am with you, and I am already there waiting for you.”
You will have to work hard; you might even have to suffer at times, but what does the Bible say about that? Romans 5:3 says, “Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” So, my dear graduates, Come. Join me in the Holy Wild. Let down your nets. The rewards are worth the cost. Trust me. And Trust in Him—the One who made you and Who loves you unconditionally.
In the words of Paul, writing to the Corinthians, “Rejoice. Be completed. Be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
