The LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. – Psalm 121:8 (NIV)
Last Saturday I thought my iPhone died. The screen went black and the contraption was unresponsive.
I did what any new smart phone owner would do – I panicked.
It took me years to upgrade from my dumb phone. I resisted, insisting I didn’t need one. I was comfortable with it, even though I recognized its growing inconveniences.
But that changed after a Christmas trip to our daughter’s in South Carolina, and I saw how helpful a smart phone could be as we travel.
So, within a week of returning home, I ordered an iPhone, which has all but become an appendage. Funny how you resist change even when it will improve your life.
I downloaded all these free apps – Lose It! to help me eat right, Runtastic to motivate me to exercise regularly, At Bat, an MLB app to keep up with my Pirates, Facebook to keep up with my friends, Kindle to keep up with my reading, Bible Gateway for its daily reading program, a weather app, and only one game app – Words with Friends (and 10 ongoing games).
So when my phone appeared dead, I felt, well, unplugged.
“Help!” I posted on Facebook.
Suggestions poured in from recharging the battery to rebooting it (also called a “hard reset”).
After an hour of recharging, the phone was still unresponsive, so I took a deep breath, swallowed hard, then held down the power and home buttons for 15–20 seconds for the hard reset. And prayed.
It worked! I was a happy camper again.
As a friend explained on Facebook, the smart phone is really a hand-held computer, and computers, in order to run properly, regularly need to be rebooted – shut off completely, unplugged. Why? With all the things they have to do, most often simultaneously, electronics “get into an odd state,” one expert explains, and shutting it off forces it to “reset and restart from a good known state.”
Shutting down and starting over.
Isn’t that the cycle of life, too?
We fear change, and resist it, so sometimes we need to be forced to reboot.
Reboots go as far back as Adam and Eve. Think of other Bible “reboots” – those who were forced to change: Job, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Elijah, Peter and the rest of the apostles, Saul, to name a few.
And although the reset was hard, they were not alone as they faced new circumstances, new people, new purposes. God had a hand in it. He had a plan. And He was with them all the way.
What about you?
Are you going through a reboot? A hard reset?
Don’t fear change. Don’t fear starting back up.
He who made you watches over you and will guide you and give you the strength, wisdom, and fortitude to forget what's behind you and reach for what’s ahead (Philippians 3:13–14).
Dear God, I resist change, even when You sanction it. Help me to overcome my fear with the faith that You oversee every aspect of this reboot for my good. Amen.
Special-Tea: Read Psalm 121
No comments:
Post a Comment