#ReBoot 2018.01.01

I know that it’s been a while since I’ve posted a quiet time… 2017 started off to be my personal best year in my life... only to become one of the worst… only to end as THE best year of my life. I won’t go into detail (but if you ask me personally, I’ll share my story), but it seemed as if my spiritual life needed a reboot

Now, for those who don’t know me, I have worked in the I.T. field for the past 20+yrs (wow, THAT makes me sound old!), and if there are two things that I have just learned to accept as "eScripture" in the "bible of I.T." - it’s:
  1. Computers are more black magic than a science, and
  2. A reboot will fix most problems, most of the time.
Now, I won’t go into "black magic", but you have to understand how computers "build up" junk-residue when you use them over time, memory or hard drive space gets used up with temporary junk, and a fresh reboot is just what the doctor ordered! Our walk with God can be like that. Now, mind you, I am not saying that anything that God gives us is junk, but rather, our imperfections & shortcomings "junk it up" - We are the weakest link in God’s chain. And sometimes, stepping back or away from something, so we can recalibrate with God, pray for direction\guidance\endurance, is the fix we need so we can continue. This is called a "soft reboot". But sometimes, just sometimes, our spiritual lives require something stronger.

You have to remember that, there are two types of reboots:
  1. A "soft reboot" where the computer never powers off during this process, and
  2. A "hard reboot" where the computer is shutdown, and has no power running through it.
A "hard reboot" is pretty much unplugging the machine, because sometimes, stuff can still remain active on a machine post soft-reboot. Plenty of times I have seen stuff still reside in memory or on the CPU after a soft-reboot, so in shutting it down completely, you free up the memory and CPU from what it was processing/doing, making it ready to start fresh when it powers back up. For me, 2017 had many "soft reboots" but it most certainly had one (if not more) "hard reboots". God needed me to shut down completely.

When 2017 turned for the worse, my memory & energy was spent on trying to resolve what went wrong, and how to fix it. Forget the fact that it takes two hands to clap, and that the other hands involved weren’t looking to do that. I believed that God had a Plan, and that it involved me staying where I am (altho the idea to leave the church was more than common)(but I always knew that THAT wasn’t what HE wanted for me). Every time He told me what to do to fix it, I said "Wait! Let’s try this!", only for it to fail. I wanted things to go back to the way they were, and God said no. And the more I didn’t listen to Him, the worse it became.



Suffering for Being a Christian


12Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.


1 Peter 4:12-13


It took 5-6mths, and some God-given therapy, for me to get to a point where I could accept the reboot that God was trying to give me. But that reboot was exactly what I had needed because when I "powered back up", I could look at what happened, not with anger, disappointment or bitterness (which is what I’ve always done throughout my entire life), but with understanding & compassion. But there was also some much needed spring cleaning, and God made the most of my reboot.

Things… just… happen

And there’s nothing you can do to prevent that from happening. Because, the more you try, the more that they just continue to happen.

You can "know" that the life of a Christian will be a rewarding, yet difficult one… You can know that "God is refining our character", and that’s never easy or painless… And you can know that, at the end of this "turmoil", that you will be even better than when this started… But when you’re in the midst of it all, when the bullets are flying past your head and you feel like giving up, we can begin to lose sight (and faith) in God. The more we try to "understand" or "fix"… the more we lose sight of God and look upon ourselves to fix the "problem".


God is good (period)

God is good when we struggle, as when we "see" His blessings… when we are hurting, as when we are joyful & happy… when we want to quit, as when we are so strong in our faith.