| | | | The God of Second Chances - 1 Timoty 1:12-13 And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry, although I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent man; but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. 1 Timothy 1:12-13
During the first half of the 1929 Rose Bowl game between Georgia Tech and the University of California, UC player Roy Riegels pickup up a fumble, became confused, and ran the wrong way towards his own goal line.
A teammate tackled him just before he would have scored a touchdown against his own team. At halftime the Bears went into the dressing room and sat down, wondering what the coach would say. Roy sat by himself; put a towel over his head, and cried.
When the team was ready to go back onto the field for the second half, the coach stunned the team when he announced that the same players who had started the first half would start the second. All of the players left the dressing room except for this young man. He would not budge. The coach looked back as he called him again, and saw that his cheeks were wet with tears. The player said, "Coach, I can't do it. I've ruined you. I've disgraced the University. I can't face that crowd in the stadium again."
Then the coach put his hand on Roy's shoulder and said, "Roy, get up and go back out there, the game is only half over."
All of us can relate to Roy on some level. We all have some incident, some action, some mistake from our past that we wish we could erase from memory. Perhaps at the time, it felt like our world as we knew it was over. But the Apostle Paul is pointing out something that goes beyond an embarrassing time, he notes that we serve a God of second chances.
Saint, it doesn't matter what you may have done in the past, God will not only forgive you, He'll give you a second chance at life. A second chance to get it right, a second chance for your life to matter. That's how Paul could say:
But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14
Next time one of those "wrong way runs" comes to your mind, instead of commiserating over the past, thank God that not only has He forgiven you, He want's to enable you, to give you an opportunity for your life to matter for the Kingdom of God.
"Lord, help me to forget my past mistakes, and instead focus on the upward call of Christ."
Pastor Clay
P.S. By the way, in 1991, Roy Riegels was inducted into the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame. | | | | | | | |
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