The God of Second Chances

 Don’t toss me aside, banished forever from your presence. Don’t take your Holy Spirit from me.

– Psalm 51:11

Playwright Oscar Wilde was right on the money when he quipped that experience is simply the name we give to our mistakes. Whether it’s on the job (a missed deadline) or in the home (water left running in the tub), mistakes can be both costly and painful. 

If there was anyone who knew something about mistakes — and also rebounding from them — it was David, Israel's most famous king as well as an ancestor of Jesus. His mountaintop moments included killing the giant Philistine warrior Goliath and leading his army to decisive

victories. On the other hand, David was twice a fugitive: once while evading jealous King Saul, and then years later when his own son chased him from the throne. David also committed adultery with one of his officer’s wives, and then had the unsuspecting man killed to cover his own sin. Psalms, a collection of poems written and compiled by David, records his emotions as he encountered the epic peaks and bottomless valleys of life.   

Maybe your own slip-ups and blunders haven't been of such biblical proportions. But they might have felt like it. After all, how many times have we all made such huge mistakes that it seemed like the end of the world? We blew it. It’s over. And we’ll never get back. 

Life-changing errors can cover lots of territory. They might affect our relationships, careers or even spiritual lives — and maybe all of the above. But the good news for Christ-followers is that we worship a God who not only knows what we’re going through, he also cares. What's more, he’s also a God of second (and third, fourth, fifth, etc.) chances.  

Like King David, the apostle Peter had a world of experience with mistakes and comebacks. In fact, after Jesus was arrested and the other apostles had scattered in fear, Peter emphatically denied that he even knew Christ. And not just once, but three times!

We read in the Gospels that Jesus was tried and convicted on false charges. And then he suffered a horrific, painful death — in our place — through his crucifixion between two deserving criminals. Crushed by guilt, Peter believed that his own life was over. After all, if anyone had blown it, it was him. But Christ had other plans for this apostle of little faith. The New Testament's Book of Acts records that Peter — now filled with the Holy Spirit — boldly defied the same religious authorities who had earlier condemned Jesus.

Failure and defeat are realities of the human experience. But here’s the Good News: They don’t have to be permanent or define us. As we search for our own life-comebacks, let’s take Peter’s victorious testimony about his master (Jesus) to heart:

“In no one else can salvation be found,” he proclaimed. “For in all the world no other name has been given to men but this, and it is by this name that we must be saved!”