Paul had some great failures, but he learned to leave them behind. The biggest of all was his misplaced zeal in persecting the church. What sad irony! Since his Damascus-road about-face, he's building up what he once set out to destroy!

Who is there among us who has never failed? It is tempting to rationalise our failures ('if only I was a lucky as...') or to be immobilized by them ('what's the use...?').

Some have 'tried the Christian life and it didn't work', and park by their spiritual failure. They're now sitting in the hog-pen in the far country when they could be enjoying the hospitality of the Father's house. A pastor visited a man after he'd been found guilty of adultery. 'There's no use for me to try again,' he said. 'If I wasn't Christian enough to live right when I had the chance, what's the point of trying now?'

A famous psychoanalyst was asked by a reporter: 'What do you try to do with your patients?' 'Our objective in analysis,' he replied, 'is to free the patient from the tyranny of the past.'

Thank you for the past, Lord, and particularly that the past is past. Encourage me to learn the lessons of the past, and move on. Amen.