Do you ever feel like you’ve messed up? That you’ve blown it, big time?

Maybe something happened a long time ago, but the guilt or shame still hangs around. Perhaps you’ve convinced yourself you’re disqualified from the life you really want because you don’t feel worthy of it, or that you’re just not good enough.

I get it. I’ve been there. But there is hope!

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

God has plans for us – for me, for you. And his plans are good, they are the best plans.

Look at Jonah. A man God had plans for; a man God used to deliver his messages – a prophet. But one day, when God sent him to Nineveh with a mission, Jonah flat-out refused. He didn’t just say no, he legged it in the opposite direction, boarded a boat, and tried to run from God!

You probably know what happened next. Storm. Panic. Jonah tossed overboard. Giant fish. Three days in its belly. A desperate prayer. Spit up on dry land. Then – amazingly – God gave him the same mission again.

Whatever drove Jonah to disobey God —whether it was fear, pride, his dislike of the people God had sent him to, or his belief that they deserved the punishment coming to them — we can all agree that he messed up. Jonah messed up spectacularly. But God didn’t write him off. He pursued him, rescued him, and recommissioned him.

And God does the same for us – even if it doesn’t necessarily involve a giant fish!

We don’t always say a direct ‘no’ to God. Sometimes our disobedience looks like:

• Going a different way because the task is uncomfortable – we might not want to help the people God is sending us to, perhaps because they have hurt us or hurt others.
• Half-heartedly following God – obeying him but only on our own terms or in part.
• Letting fear shout louder than obedience, believing the lies of the enemy who wants us to fail.
• Doubting or questioning God, suggesting that someone else would be better placed for the task.
• Hesitating and missing the moment.

Been there? Me too. Let me give you some examples.

Has God ever asked you to show kindness to someone you didn’t like, or who had hurt you? To pray for good things for them? He’s asked me. I “reluctantly” prayed for someone for nearly 30 years because I knew it was what God wanted me to do. I didn’t pray for them every day, and many prayers were half-hearted. But despite my reluctance, after all that time, that person came to Jesus! Who knows what might have happened if my obedience had been more enthusiastic?

Or have you ever carried on doing something wrong, knowing it was wrong, and after nudges from the Holy Spirit providing opportunities to walk away? I have. When I finally came to my senses, I felt guilt and shame and thought I’d completely stuffed up. But God has other ideas and offers grace and mercy, even when we should have known better.

The Bible is full of stories like these. People who hesitated, doubted, failed, and still got a second chance.

Take Lot, Abraham’s nephew. In Genesis 18, the people living in Sodom and Gomorrah had become so brazenly wicked that God set out to destroy them. When two angels arrived in Sodom, they gave Lot, his wife, and his daughters the chance to escape.

And they even gave a second chance to Lot’s daughters’ fiancés. Despite the violence and corruption in the city, which we presume they were part of (see Genesis 19:4-5), these young men were given the opportunity to leave with the family. But they didn’t take it. When Lot warned them about the coming destruction, they thought he was joking. They chose to stay behind, clinging to the city and its ways rather than trusting the warning and escaping with Lot.

Then came the moment to leave. The angels said, “Hurry!” And Lot? He hesitated.

But God didn’t give up. He didn’t write him off and say, “No, you’ve had your chance!”

Much like he intervened in stopping Jonah going off course, he intervened here too: “When Lot still hesitated, the angels seized his hands and the hands of his wife and two daughters and rushed them to safety outside the city, for the Lord was merciful.” Genesis 19:16

His hesitation didn’t disqualify him. God rescued him anyway. Lot was given a second chance.

I recently hesitated too. I felt God leading me to do something, and a door opened. Instead of walking through, I let insecurity and worry about my motivations creep in and make me question whether I really had heard from God. Even after a friend confirmed it with a prophetic word that matched exactly what God had told me! I hesitated, and I missed the opportunity.

My hesitation was disobedience. But once I woke up to the fact that I was being disobedient, I had a choice: to keep looking back on my mistake, or to repent and trust God, who loves to give us second chances.  I chose to repent and trust God. He told me to ‘be prepared.’ In his mercy, he opened another door – and this time I didn’t hesitate. He gave me another go. Same mission. A different route.

After his hesitation, Lot looked forward. Lot’s wife, however, made a different choice. His family was given a clear instruction – to run for their lives and not look back. As God rained down fire and burning sulphur on Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s wife looked back. She turned into a pillar of salt.

Whilst the Bible doesn’t tell us why she looked back, we know that in Luke 17:32-33, Jesus warns us to “remember Lot’s wife! If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it.”

We can assume that her heart still clung to Sodom, to her home, her possessions, or perhaps even her lifestyle. She was unwilling to let go of the past and trust God for her future.

God does give us second chances, but we need to let go of our past and not hold on to our mistakes. That might mean dealing with disappointment, guilt, shame, sin, insecurities, fear, and a whole range of other things. Because as long as we are looking back, we are missing the good plans God has for us, and we may as well be a pillar of salt. If that’s you, I want to encourage you to pray with someone and walk forward in freedom.

There is a Japanese art form known as kintsukuroi. It is the art of repairing pottery with gold and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken. Whatever has gone on in our lives, however messed up, damaged, or rubbish we feel, we are beautiful and just as valuable, having been broken and repaired. But we do need repairing. And Jesus is the master builder.

The apostle Paul tells us in Galatians 5:1, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” Jesus’ death and resurrection aren’t just about deciding where we go when we die. We can have freedom right now from everything that causes those cracks and breaks in our lives, and we can live unrestrained in that freedom all our days on earth.

I imagine very few of us carry coins anymore. But do you remember ever being given a shiny new coin by the bank or at the supermarket?  If you had a shiny new £2 coin and dropped it into a muddy puddle, or worse (for example, a pile of fresh horse manure), does its value change? No. It may now be in a bit of a mess, but you can clean it up, and it is still worth just as much.

God doesn’t dispense with us when we make mistakes. When I make mistakes in my writing, or it doesn’t go to plan, I use the delete key and start again. In the “old days,” I might have used a typewriter, crumpled up the page into a ball, and thrown it away if I wasn’t happy with my work. God’s not like that. He doesn’t hit delete, and he doesn’t scrunch us into a ball and throw us away when we mess up. He gives us another chance.

Jonah made a mess of things when he disobeyed God. I have made a mess of things, LOADS! But God didn’t throw Jonah away, and he didn’t throw me away. He still had a plan for Jonah, he still has a plan for me. We both had another chance. And so do you.