Rebound with Grace

“Rebound!” A word that is engraved into every single basketball player.

A rebound gets the team the ball. A defensive rebound allows one team to steal the ball from another. An offensive rebound gives the same team a second chance. No matter what side of the court a player is on, “rebound” should be repeated over and over in their head.

Our walk with Jesus may not feel like a game of basketball, but it shares one common theme: rebound. If we look in Scripture, we won’t find the word “rebound.” We won’t read that Jesus told His followers to “Rebound!” after they messed up. Instead, Jesus used another word: grace.

As believers in Jesus Christ, we are promised grace and forgiveness for our sins. When we mess up and miss the mark, God teaches us there is a way for us to rebound and have a second chance. But we cannot do this out of our strength; instead, God rebounds the ball for us out of His goodness and love.

God rebounds our messes and forgives our sins when we come to Him and confess, telling Him what we did wrong and asking Him to forgive us. When we do, He rebounds the shot we missed, hands us the ball, and says, “I forgive you. Try again.” The beautiful part is that God never gets tired of rebounding for us. We can go to Him every second of the day and confess our brokenness and all our mess-ups, and He will always rebound and give us another go.

God’s love will never run out or stop rebounding for us. As we mess up in life, let us not get discouraged or give up; instead, let us have confidence and rejoice that God is ready to hear our confession, lovingly rebound for us, and help us go again.