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We all fail here and there in life. Don’t you think? Being able to admit that might just be one of the gateways to healthy understanding. Yes? 

In 1955, the Lincoln division of the Ford Company had a revolutionary design for a full-sized car that would also be a convertible. Futura, it was called. They got it so far into the design and concept process that they manufactured a handful of prototypes. 

Before the car went into sales and manufacturing, though, they found out that the car-buying public had no real interest in it. They scrapped the plan and, a few years later, sold the prototypes to a TV studio for one dollar each. However, you and I know that car as the original 1960s Batmobile—a failure that found new life.

When I was fourteen years old, I decided I was ready to add a curveball to my pitching repertoire. Why work on it in practice? Someone had told me how to grip the ball and throw the pitch. I decided that day to work it in. Jay Allen, who would later start three years on the varsity football offensive line, stepped in to bat. All six feet and already 220 some-odd pounds of him. 

Thank goodness he was a gentle giant and we were friends. Because I hit him three times in that one game. Trying to throw curveballs. 

When I have failed, I’ve needed someone not to tell me that I really didn’t fail. That wasn’t what I needed. What I needed was someone to remind me that there will be life after failure. A voice to beckon me back to what I know and to welcome me back in. To tell me I am loved and wanted. 

Zechariah. In Hebrew, his name might have been a message to the people he would serve. In Hebrew, Zechariah meant “The Lord remembers.” This prophet only served for a tiny two years, it seems, from 520 to 518 BC. But in his chapters, he left behind a big message. 

We can feel forgotten, lose touch with hope, and feel abandoned, like there’s no way home. But God remembers. Always. Have you ever found comfort and hope in those moments when someone simply remembered you? 

Zechariah had visions, which abounded in the early chapters of this little book of the Old Testament. His visions sound as apocalyptic as John’s Revelation at the end of the New Testament.

What’s happening here? God’s chosen people, the children of Israel in our biblical literature– but humanity really– have failed. This is all our stories, truthfully. 

Now, God has begun an intentional march toward what we’ll see unfold before us in the pages of the New Testament gospels. God is telling them that they are still beloved. 

Yes, they have failed. They have failed egregiously and have paid a steep price for that failure. But the rest of the world isn’t doing any better. So it’s time to bring them back home for the next chapter.

Isn’t that what you and I need so often for someone to remind us of? That where we are today, might not have been in our plans. That where we are today, might have so much suffering for a time. That where we are today, might not be where we want to stay. 

But a new chapter is possible, and it could be just up ahead. That’s a word we need to hear. Whether we got there by our own failure or by someone else’s.

So many of the prophets were including that reconciliation note in their books. God yearned for the people to wake up. To return to God. And someday even to return home. 

What does it all mean? Well, we can play the silly games people play with Revelation and get all lost in any of a thousand interpretations of each little detail. Usually, I might add, interpretations by people who are ill-qualified to be interpreting. 

Or we can look at those symbols in their biblical and cultural contexts to get some ideas. Then surf the peaks and crests of the verbal wave that is Zechariah’s message.

The Lord remembers you in your deepest pain and in your most paralyzing fear. On the day of your greatest confusion, in the mess of your greatest failure or in the embarrassment of your worst sin. Even in the indecisiveness of your most terrible feeling of simply being lost in life.

DR. CHARLES QUALLS is senior pastor at Franklin Baptist Church. Contact him at 757-562-5135.