31 days of Learning #5: 100th chance happen

We all hear about "second chances." Today I've learned that God never gives up on us, constantly reminding us that his forgiving Nature is our standard for relationships, past, present, and future.

This morning, listening to Isaiah 44, I again embraced the God of many, many chances. If we had only two opportunities to repent, to come back to our senses, or to return to the God who loves us, forgiveness would be "used up" before we left the toddler stage.

How much more does God call to us to reflect his loving forgiveness to those who sin against us!

Most people don't even know when they offend us. We easily get snarled up in personal slights (intended or not), being overlooked, or when a wrong is done against us.

Rather than letting those harsh experiences define us, let's let God be the avenger, the smoother-of-crooked-paths, and especially, the abundant source of joy in our hearts.

Read more:

*Come and listen, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me. I cried out to him with my mouth;  his praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer. Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me! Psalm 66:16-20 NIV

*This is what the LORD says—your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb: I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself, who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who overthrows the learning of the wise and turns it into nonsense, who carries out the words of his servants and fulfills the predictions of his messengers, who says of Jerusalem, "It shall be inhabited," of the towns of Judah, "They shall be built," and of their ruins, "I will restore them," who says to the watery deep, "Be dry, and I will dry up your streams..." Isaiah 44:24-27 NLT