Pressing the reset button.
G’day, and welcome back to
the Bible Bloke Podcast where I try to keep faith simple, practical and real.
exception here.
I was reminded of a scene in one of my favourite movies, The God’s Must be Crazy. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.
In one scene, our intrepid hero and his not so trusty Land Rover are stuck in a river. He pulls the winch cable up onto the riverbank but finds nowhere to fasten it, except an overhanging branch. Now, for some reason he sets the winch running and leaves it to its own devices. When he returns, the winch has done its job, and the Land
Rover is dangling from the tree. Of course it is. Never leave children or
Land Rovers unsupervised.
He sits down, lights his
pipe and contemplates the situation.
When life doesn’t work the
way you anticipate, you have to take a step back, make a coffee, and think
about pressing the reset button.
The good thing is, God has
a way of meeting us in those reset button moments.
He doesn’t grieve us or
shame us. There is no blame, no rolling of the eyes and that look that says, “You
stuffed it up again.”
God is a God of new
beginnings.
In Isaiah 43: 18-19 we
read “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new
thing!”
You have to be honest
about it though. What’s broken. What’s not working. What is your pain point.
What needs to change. Here’s the thing. If you put a name on it, you can deal
with it. You can’t change what you don’t understand.
There is no point trying
to change the past. Yes, things have happened. Things you aren’t proud of. That’s
life. It gets messy.
God uses our trials to
prepare us, to give us patience, to deepen our wisdom, to build on our
testimony, so that we can share with someone who is going through the same
thing.
Maybe it’s time to sit
back and think about the reset? Doing nothing is not an option. Peter jumped
out of the boat; he took the first step, the biggest step, the step of faith.
It was only when he took
his eyes off Jesus that things went pear shaped.
Have faith, trust that God
has a plan, and that you are in His hand, his victorious right hand. From the
depths of hopelessness, languishing in Babylon, God tells Israel that He has
plans for them, just as He has plans for you, of course He does, He loves you,
even to the point of sending His only Son, Jesus to die on the Cross. God
promises that He will come, and do for you all the good things He promised, and
will bring you home again, home to a place that is anchored in grace, mercy and
hope.
Yes, we know that we must
take that first step. We should also be aware that change happens from the
inside out. It’s about transformation, and that happens when we keep our eyes
on Jesus.
As you look at the rest of
today, as you look toward tomorrow and the week ahead, whatever challenges they
might hold, take a moment to identify the thing or things that needs to change,
the situation that has to resolve, name it.
Hold it up in your hands, lifting
it to the Lord in open honest prayer and say: “Here it is Lord, I can’t deal
with this on my own, I need Your help.”
Thank You God for being a
God of new beginnings. Thank you Lord that you don’t hold our past mistakes
against us.
Lord, we ask you to step
into those spaces, those places in our lives where we need new beginnings,
fresh starts, where we need to press that reset button.
Lord, help us to name the
problem, to give us Your clarity of understanding and purpose. Lead us on the
path you have set for us. Guide us in Your ways, Amen.
Thanks for joining me and
keep an eye out for more from the Bible Bloke.