Second Chances
Mk 1:9-15
Illustration
by King Duncan

In 1971 a man named Jim Reid moved to Florida to work for Walt Disney World as a surveyor. In his spare time Reid took up scuba diving and searched for sunken treasures in old shipwrecks. One day he put on his gear and dove into a water hazard at the local golf course. To his amazement he discovered in that tiny lake thousands of golf balls. Telling the course manager about his discovery he was offered ten cents a ball for all the balls he could retrieve. Reid made almost as much in one day as he did all week as a surveyor.

Soon he quit his job with Walt Disney and submerged himself in his new business of golf ball diving. He became known as the Used Golf Ball King of Florida. He called his business "Second Chance," and in 1994 it was doing so well that he sold it for $5.1 million.

Jim Reid made a good living finding golf balls that others thought were lost and irretrievable. It wasn't always easy work, but it brought him great rewards.

Jim Reid is not the only one who specializes in finding that which is lost. God is the ultimate finder of that which others have marked off as irretrievable. What God finds is not lost golf balls but lost people. Our baptism reminds us that when we stray from being what God has created us to be, God comes to us to give us a chance to start over.

ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., ChristianGlobe Illustrations, by King Duncan