“But to each one of us grace has been given.” – Ephesians 4:7
The young man sat across from me, his face buried in his hands sobbing. I had just fired him, on the grounds of poor performance, and he was understandably devastated, explaining between sobs how he had never before failed at anything in his life. It caused me to have some second thoughts, which in turn stimulated an idea that might at least salvage his employment, if not in a lesser position at a much-reduced salary. He jumped at that second chance. Before long he became a rising star, his career eventually surpassing my own. Some years later another young man applied for a position I had available, but the interview did not go well. Realizing he had blown the interview, the next day he called begging for a second chance. That second interview landed him the job, and he too eventually grew to become a successful professional.
Lest my arm break from patting myself on the back for my gracious deeds, let me hasten to confess that whatever benevolence I may have offered those two young men is minuscule compared to the grace I have received in my own life over and over again. And I am pretty sure that realization went through my head in having second thoughts about the firing, and in offering a second chance at the interview. Who was I, after all, to deny grace when I had received so much?
In his parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus tells the story [also] about a young man who after asking for and receiving his inheritance from his father ran away and squandered it all on wild living. Finally, broke and desperate, he decided to return home in the hope that his father might at the very least employ him as a lowly servant. Instead, his father ran out and wrapped his arms around his son, welcoming him home, then threw a grand party to celebrate his return. Oh, the gracious gift of a second chance!
By its very definition, grace is a gift that is undeserved and that no one can earn. And to be brutally honest, neither of those young men deserved a second chance, any more than the Prodigal Son in Jesus’ parable, nor the countless second chances I have received in my own life. “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it,” the Apostle Paul reminds us. So, the best we can do in return, I suppose, is to try to apportion a bit of that grace to others every chance we get.