This Christmas holiday (if there ever is a Christmas holiday for pastors?!), I finally took the plunge and got Forza Horizon 5 during Steam’s winter sale. I have been looking forward to a new driving game since GT4 and F1 2019. I am not a hardcore sim racer and Forza 5 seems to fit my “need for—average—speed” just fine. However, one of the features that I never thought I would appreciate is the rewind button; a feature that allows players to rewind their progress a few seconds back so you can try again right away. When I first read this ability, I thought this was a dumb idea for a racing game. I imagine that in a race, you don’t want all the pauses and stops that may break the flow of racing. You want a smooth, adrenaline-inducing experience.
But as I got to play some of the races, I found myself unable, and unwilling to live without this nifty rewind button on my steering wheel. Instead of restarting the race every time I made a mistake, I can now quickly rewind a few seconds and fix my bad driving. I can do it as many times as I want and whenever I want.
How I wish life had a rewind button.
There are so many moments in my life when I wish I could hit the rewind button. Embarrassing moments like forgetting people I’ve met; As a pastor, this happens a lot by me on Sundays! Opportunities missed that I wished I could go back and try again. Or maybe they are regrets that are not so innocent: Thoughtless words that caused harm to others or actions that left a deep scar to others and myself. So many of these moments that I can only replay in my mind but I can never rewind and do it again.
How can we live this endurance race of life without a rewind button? But what if you were given a grace button instead?
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
- Hebrews 4:16
In the Bible, the writer of Hebrews encourages us that our God is a God who sits on a throne of grace; abundant, bottomless grace. He sees and knows all of our failures, regrets, and faults. And He wants us to come to Him, not for a rewind button, but for a grace boost to get through the difficult times: the times of temptation, times of failures, times of regret. We can’t hit the erase & redo button, but we can bring our mistakes and regrets and place them in front of God’s throne of grace. We hit the receive button and we accept His forgiveness, mercy, and grace.
In life, all of us will run a corner wide, hit a few walls, crash into others and miss a few turns we should take. There will be consequences, but we don’t need to sulk in regrets or defeat. Hold close to God’s promises, and believe His grace is enough to get you through the bumpy part of your journey. Let’s start the new year with an abundance of grace and not rewind!