God Of A Second Chance

"Howbeit the hair of his head began to grow again after he was shaven" Judges 16:22

Nearly two years have passed since the beginning of this prayer journey. As time has dragged on, many of the things I feared would happen, have. Many of the things I so arrogantly said would not happen in this journey did. Tonight, I believe my biggest fear of this journey has happened. Early on in one of these blogs I shared how tragic it would be for us to come within a day, an hour, even a minute of God answering this prayer and quitting before He did and I fear that is exactly what has happened.
     I'd heard on the radio last week that Tebow had been last spotted on a beach in Hawaii. Today, someone mentioned to me they'd heard he was here. I went online to find out if there was any truth to the news and found out he had been here in mid-October. I can not find any news saying that he is still here in our islands. My first reaction was to accuse and question God. "Why would you bring him all the way to Hawaii and not to our school?" "Why would you only answer part of the request, get him this close and not allow us to meet him?" Tonight, when I got home, I knew I needed to spend some time with God trying to find answers. It didn't take God long to begin showing me some realities. I still do pray, if that is what you want to call it, for this request. My prayers early on were some rather lengthy conversations with God, begging Him to show me what to pray, to confirm it with Scripture...and He did, often. Those prayers were spent honestly seeking out God, learning so much about prayer and the role of the Holy Spirit. They were prayers lifting Tebow up before God as I'd promised I would. My 'prayers' now consist of a ten minute car ride to work, basically, "God bless Tebow, God burden his heart with a desire to come to Hawaii, God answer my prayer." It's no wonder God showed little interest in answering my prayer, look how important it had become to me. How often had I told my kids God was only as interested in this prayer as we were. Something else He showed me was the kids themselves. I dare say very few, if any, of them still pray for this and I fully understand why...it's been a long time with little tangible results. There were many, many spiritual rewards early on, but time went on and it got harder, being a prayer warrior is not an easy thing. I don't think they're falling away is entirely their fault, however. I was supposed to be their spiritual accountability. I signed an agreement saying I would be and I stopped. I let school schedules and summer put a stop to our prayer times. This became unimportant to them because it became less urgent to me. That hits me the hardest...what have they missed because I dropped the ball?
     The disappointment is strong that Tebow was here and we missed it. I prayed up until the last minutes and quit and missed God answering this prayer for my kids in their senior year. In the midst of the sorrow and tears, God did bring Samson to mind. Samson blew it big time. God's rules became unimportant to him and he suffered greatly because of it. But that verse above says his hair began to grow again...Samson began to believe again and God gave him a second chance.
     That is where my hope is tonight, in a God of a second chance. I realize there are things God would have loved to do in answering this prayer and may now not be able to just as I am sure there is much God would have loved to do for and through Samson had He been given the chance. Samson did eventually give Him that chance and God still did something pretty incredible. The Bible says Samson killed more Philistines in his death than in his life. God can still do something pretty incredible here as well.
     This has been a very sobering wake up call, but I am awake now. Proverbs says a righteous man falleth seven times and riseth up yet again. It's time to get up, dust off and start moving forward with this again and not waste a second opportunity for God to answer this.