People of the Second Chance

Everyone deserves a second chance, and sometimes a third or a fourth chance.  Don’t take my word for it, read the Old Testament and see how many chances God gave Abraham, Jonah, and you’ll probably lose count trying to figure out how many second chances Israel had.  And it continues in the New Testament, but with a twist. Jesus gave lots of people a second chance—think the woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery. But when he went to the cross for us, he also gave us—you and me,—people in the 21^st century our second chance.  

Mike Foster, ”Chief Chance Officer” at People of the Second Chance, talks about getting and giving those second chances. His book People of the Second Chance: A Guide to Bringing Life-Saving Love to the World (WaterBrook, 2016) is full of examples of those second chances. 

I really like the concept of the book, too many people are marginalized because of mistakes they made earlier in life. Instead of being defined by the way God sees them (and us) far too many people are defined by their past, by their mistakes. Society defines them that way, and far too often we define ourselves that way also.

The back cover copy calls this a “manifesto for prodigals, imperfectionists and hopesters” and that definitely came through in the book. It matters not so much what we have done wrong, but how we respond to the plan that God has for us.  The subtitle of the book “a guide to bringing life-saving love to the world” didn’t come across quite as clearly.

I enjoyed reading some of the second chance stories in this book, but in many cases they were a little ‘light’; and although the boating incident described early in the book was traumatic, my sense is that the author referred to it a few too many times, instead of integral to the point he was trying to make it became mere filler.

"I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review."

3/5