My wife, Donna likes things done really well. When she vacuums the house, she moves the tables, the chairs and gets the things out of the way so it’s done right.
When it’s my turn, I’m a little more practical. The head of that vacuum is there for a reason, right? I use it to push things out of the way. When I vacuum the closet, I try to be strategic in how I move the shoes out of the way, without catching a shoelace in the beater bar, but inevitably, it gets caught. That lace winds up in the beater bar, and then the vacuum freezes; it completely stops. I have to sit down and unwind the thing to pull the shoelace out. Once it’s all clear, I can push the reset button. It won’t run again until I push that reset button.
What if you had a reset button, you could push whenever you get stuck in life?
A reality reset is possible.
Imagine for a minute if God had installed a reset button on the side of our heads, and when we needed it, we could just push that button, restart and move past whatever caused us to become stuck.
Sometimes we can reset and sometimes we can’t. It’s important to learn the difference
So, what is reality?
Reality is simply the world or the state of things as they actually are.
Sometimes reality, stinks.
Sometimes reality hurts.
Sometimes reality is not what we want in our lives.
In fact, as I was coming into the studio this morning, I grabbed one of my files from my last conference and pulled out questions attendees had written down asking me to answer.
- Do you have advice for the pastor, who should be leading others, when you feel like you’re falling apart yourself?
- How do we get back on track, if we can’t seem to communicate and understand each other in our marriage? We can’t connect emotionally or share our feelings.
- How can a couple get on the same page financially when the husband has abused credit cards, and the wife wants no credit card debt? This has caused a trust issue and a problem in our marriage.
Many couples come to one of my conferences with smiles on their faces, but underneath, something is going on in the relationship. They need a reset.
You’re all leaders somewhere – in your family, at work, in the community or in church. And leaders are about helping to change people’s reality.
So, what’s a reset?
A reset is to move back into an original place position.
If you have you ever broken a bone, it is out of place. The medical team reset the bone to put it back into place and then wrap it to hold it in place so it can heal.
When we have a broken bone it hurts, but pain can also result from a broken life. God never intended for parts of your life are out of place.
Jesus authors every reality reset.
His whole ministry was one of resetting people back to the reality of the relationship with Him. That relationship was broken in the Garden of Eden. Sin entered the world, like a broken bone. And Jesus, in His love for us, came to reset that, to bring it back into alignment to relationship with Him (John 3:16).
God did not send His son into the world to condemn it, but through Jesus the entire world might be saved (John 3:17).
The criminal on the cross is a notable example of a reset of reality. This man hung on the cross next to Christ, and in the last moments of his life he turns to Jesus, and Jesus reset his life. Jesus said to him, “Today, you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
The Bible is full of stories of how God took a life, stuck in some way, and reset it.
- The woman at the well needed her life to be reset as he approached her (John 4).
- Jesus approached Matthew, the tax collector and says, “Leave your tax collecting business and follow me.” Matthew’s whole life must have been about collecting money and the greed that can come with that lifestyle. Jesus resets Matthew’s life in that moment (Mark 2:13-17).
- The woman caught an adultery – Jesus bends down, writes on the ground and then tells her to go and sin no more. He resets her life (John 7:53 – 8:11).
Jesus’ words are a great hope for you today. He can reset a broken life.
