Third Quarter Comeback

Disclaimer: I’m drafting this before the Super Bowl!  Don’t we all love a close game?  It’s why the divisionals and the league championships are sometimes more exciting than the Super Bowl. Back and forth the scores surge, first one team than the other leads.  

Sometimes fatigue sets in and becomes a factor in which team wins.  That’s why at the end of the third quarter you can often see one team start to pull ahead.  Maybe their offense is on the field enough to let their defense rest, helping them pack more punch when they are defending.  

Maybe their offense is especially hot, or the field kicker extremely reliable. Of course, the game is thrilling when one team suddenly scores, and the early leaders find themselves trailing. Third quarter comeback time! We love it when it’s our team; hate it when it’s the opponents who are leading!

And in life? Is there such thing as a third quarter comeback? Aren’t life trajectories set into place by your thirties and forties?  Can you do an about-face in midlife?  Thanks be to God, you can!  It’s not too late to gain the respect of your adult children.  It’s not too late to make amends for the poor choices you had made previously.  

It’s not too late to gain the respect of your adult children. 

God calls himself the Restorer of the Breach.  He can help you establish new patterns of behavior, change your thoughts and even restore your bank account.  This doesn’t happen over night, but it can be done and has been done!  This gives our Lord another name - the God of Mercy.

You’ll know without question the one and only real God.

To those of you in the third quarter of your life, the right Team can start to pull ahead. How? Bow your head and ask him to forgive you and show you how to change.  Ask him to become your Coach. One of the most precious promises in the Bible is the promise found in the book of Joel:

 “I’ll make up for the years of the locust,

    the great locust devastation—

Locusts savage, locusts deadly,

    fierce locusts, locusts of doom,

That great locust invasion

    I sent your way.

You’ll eat your fill of good food.

    You’ll be full of praises to your God,

The God who has set you back on your heels in wonder.

    Never again will my people be despised.

You’ll know without question

    that I’m in the thick of life with Israel,

That I’m your God, yes, your God,

    the one and only real God.

Joel 2: 25-27, The Message

Photo kindly shared by Robert Hernandez Villalta from Pexels