A Second Chance

“When you have returned to Me, strengthen your brothers.” Luke 22:32 NKJV

Failure doesn’t have to be final, unless you let it be.”

My thoughts today are about “a second chance.”

Thomas Edison failed five hundred times before inventing the light bulb, but he didn’t stop trying until he succeeded. Babe Ruth, legendary baseball hitter known for career home runs, had more strikeouts than home runs. Yet today he is remembered for the number of home runs, not strikeouts. A person who never makes a mistake is not trying very hard to accomplish anything very important.

You will have failures along the way. Your best intentions may not be realized; your best effort may fail; your best judgment may not be good enough; a decision may be ill-advised; your impulsiveness will leave you with regrets; your words or action will hurt someone you least want to hurt. Those are not the same as failures of character or integrity.

All failures are not alike – not the same size, not with the same consequences, not all from the same source.   Failure may be something you do or a mistake you make; don’t let it define who or what you become!

Failure doesn’t have to be final, unless you let it be. God specializes in the redemptive process. Many of the revered names int eh Bible’s “chapter of champions” would have been a mere footnote in history if their stories had ended with their failures – Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and others. Read Hebrews 11. Instead theirs are stories of God’s redemptive grace. They failed; they would not remain failures. Their faith in God gave them strength to become more than they had been.

Peter seemed to fail often and on a grand scale, never in a small way. In today’s Bible verse, Jesus warned Peter that he would, but also assured him that even his failure could be redeemable and become useful to help others. “When you have returned to Me, strengthen your brothers.” Luke 22:32 NKJV. Peter learned from his failure, and there is much that failure can teach you.

Don’t give up on yourself; Jesus doesn’t. You can turn failure into something better. Turn away from failure; do not keep repeating it stubbornly. Bring your failures to Jesus, who alone can give you a fresh start. Seek and receive God’s wisdom, when yours has been inadequate. Offer your experiences to benefit and help others avoid the same mistakes. A failure is not the end of the world; in God, it’s just a new place to begin again.

You may be tempted to judge yourself by a failure of the moment, but Jesus looks upon you in grace and sees you in the fullness of your potential – what you are becoming, rather than what you have been. “To as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God, even as many as believed on His name.” John 1:12.

“Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joys of the Lord forever.” Matthew 25:21. The last word over your life can be God’s commendation, not condemnation. “There is therefore no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk no longer after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:1.

My prayer for you each day is for failures few and small, and successes great and many.