30 days of thankfulness, Day 30: thankful for clean slates and second chances

 

On day 30, and the final day of 30 days of being thankful, I am thankful for clean slates and second chances.

  There is a guy I have been emailing from a state far away that struggles with the same issues I struggle with. He has been failing a lot in especially one area, and said this in his most recent email to me:

"As a year winds down, I always think of the coming year as a clean slate, a chance for purity and peace.  I know it'll take commitment, work, and vulnerability to achieve that. I'm looking back at 2014 and shaking my head...the place I was at last Nov. (ugh)...everything I've felt, learned, prayed, and done, it's been brutal and amazing. God's obviously been ridiculously faithful through it all."

  When I replied, I agreed and pointed out that each day we are given is also a clean slate. No matter what we do in a day, no matter how we failed God or sinned, all we need to do is repent - and mean it - and go on with a clean slate.

 But as we get closer and closer to a new year starting and this one ending, it is awesome to think of 365 days stretching ahead of us as a clean slate. If we had a bad year, it is a chance to have a good one, to change what needs to be changed, to do things differently. To start out right with God and serve Him the way we need to all year long, to not repeat the mistakes of 2014.

  And even if we do, God is the God of second chances. We can fail Him daily in the same area, and He will always forgive. We can walk away from Him a million times, and He will always take Him back. As a song I like says, each time we fail Him and ask forgiveness, to Him, it is only the first time. For us, it is the second or millionth time. Thank God He doesn't always give us what we deserve, but over and over gives us another chance, another clean slate.

  That is more awesome than most of us understand, and we can never be thankful enough for it.

It's Only The First Time Lyrics

There’s a secret sin that you live with
And it’s tearing you apart
You've prayed and prayed, but now you’re ashamed

To ask God to cleanse your heart
But even though you've fallen again
When you kneel before Him

Chorus:
It’s only the first time
He’s forgotten the last time
The moment you pray, His grace takes away
The stain of your sin
Just know that in God’s eyes
It’s only the first time
He’s already there to hear your prayer
And forgive you again.

If the Savior says we must forgive
Time and time again
Then how much more will our Lord
Forgive us when we sin
His love is so strong, so wide and so deep
He longs for you to believe