Our God is a God of second chances and third, and fourth and
hundredth. Yet, we have forgotten this. We have allowed guilt, anger, judgment and
basically day-to-day life itself keep us from accepting and giving second
chances. We allow for tear downs but
don’t allow for build ups. We leave the
destruction instead of fixing things leaving us isolated. Humans are now more connected than ever and
yet in a world in which everything is “on” we have created space for
isolation, loneliness and worse to thrive.
Let us begin to heal by allowing ourselves to have a real relationship
with the Divine, one in which the Holy helps inform our choices, guiding us to
an understanding of the true connectivity of the world in which the Holy
dwells.
There is no better time than during Lent to look and
contemplate our lives and our relationship with God – For that is what Lent is
all about. Lent has a long history of
being misunderstood or of people who simply “give up” something for Lent
without any real change or meaning behind it.
We are called during Lent to not simply “give up” something but to
engage the Lord in a relationship. We do
so by replacing something with prayer – often this translates to giving
something up and when we have temptations we are reminded of God and how Jesus
defeated his temptations. Well that
might sit well with some; but for me, that always made me question the true intent
for the Lenten experience. Shouldn’t we
come out of this for the better? Jesus
came out of the wilderness ready to begin his ministry and to reveal to people
the Divine within. Lent should be about
looking at ourselves inwardly so that we may come to a greater understanding of
the Divine within us and thus ready to come out shining God’s light to the
world – even brighter than the year before for we are never done growing!
In not giving into the temptations by the Devil, Jesus is
giving us an example of how to live the very best of our lives. It is ultimately the sacrifice of Christ that
paves the way for our own sins to be forgiven and for each of us to receiving
the blessing of a second chance. The
devil at the end of the temptations leaves Jesus with the statement “until a
more opportune time” – even the devil is dealing out second chances to
fail! And yet, our Creator is offering
us so much more, our Redeemer is offering us as many second chance as we need
and a relationship like none other.
This Lent, let us explore the concept of second chances as
we search the Bible. Let us ask
ourselves:
What is God asking us to try
again or to renew?
Who is God calling us to give a
second chance to? Someone else? Ourselves? Both?
What are we running from in our
lives?
What should we be running to?
For the 40 days of Lent (Monday - Saturday) I will offer to you a devotional that explores second chances in the Bible. You can find this under my Lenten Devotional Page. Let these 40 Bible passages or people inspire you on your
walk with God. Encourage you to find the
Holy even in the ordinary of life and more importantly to find the courage to
accept or give a second chance.
