There’s a song by pastor and gospel music artist, Hezekiah Walker and The Love Fellowship Choir that has been on my mind the last few days as we come to the end of 2024. The song was released in 1995, and it was one that many Black church choirs sang and sang and sang some more. We cried over the lyrics. We praised God when we thought about all the times God carried us through hard times. That is, those times when we got ourselves into situations that we couldn’t get ourselves out of on our own, but God rescued us in spite of ourselves. Times when we distanced ourselves from God’s will only to desperately need God’s forgiveness, patience and restoration.
The song is entitled, “Second Chance.” It speaks of God’s mysterious ability to show us who we are when we do wrong, then forgive us, restore us, love us, and give us a second chance to get on the right track to love the Lord with all our heart, soul and strength, again. It reminds that God is a forgiving God who can change the wayward heart. For the Lord is “the God of a Second Chance.”
I wish I could say that God has only had to give me a second chance.
It seems I have an uncanny ability to get myself into situations where I need chance, after chance, after chance, after chance. A chance to get back on the right track. A chance to refocus on the Lord. A chance to pray more diligently and to seek the Lord’s will before I make decisions. A chance to exhibit patience and gentleness so that people may know I am a disciple of Christ. And yet another chance to speak with wisdom and grace. Oh, I’m being a little trite here because the Lord knows all the places I’ve been where I had no business, the things I’ve done that are not becoming of a daughter of Christ, and the conversations I had that have been seasoned with dirt and filth; definitely not salt. Yet, in all these things, God has graciously given me a second chance, and a third chance, and a fourth chance and well, too many chances to count.
Not that I’m thinking about it, I wonder if I’m to count my blessings and name them one by one, then don’t I have to count my failures, too? While I’m at it, I’ll also jot down the miracles of another chance.
Twenty twenty-four is ending. I’m my normal nostalgic, sitting here at my computer, listening to Monique Walker singing to the Lord, on repeat, reminding me that the Lord “gave me a second chance.” Tears stream down my face as I reminisce about the second chances, and the another chances the Lord gifted me in 2024. All my best laid plans that went awry, my missteps, my wrongs, and my purposeful sins – that is, the sins that I always thought those sinners committed, then I remembered “they” are me. I’m amazed that God still loves me, just as I was this time last year and the year before that. I marvel at the magnificent God who sits ready to dole out the another chances I will need throughout 2025. Omniscient God knows that as I promise (resolve?) to pray more, read my Bible more, listen for the still small voice more, do as the Spirit leads more, be more gracious and more loving, I will need the Divine’s forgiveness, mercy, grace, love, and all those another chances again and again.
I sit here, grateful in advance for another chance.
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