Can I Get A Reset?

Tech-savvy peeps: this starts with a metaphor, it's not perfect ;)


Three times this morning the PC I'm using has freaked out over a network problem.  In moments like this I take solace in the fact that the reset button is never far away.  It may not be the recommended way of re-starting a computer, but sometimes it's just what's needed.  You push that little button and everything that was troublesome or difficult or painful to endure is wiped away instantly.  One touch and the computer remembers them no more.  It's little silicon heart awakes as if on a bright Spring morning, ready to crunch numbers with a sense of joy and expectation coursing through its transistors.

January 2010 and in a lot of ways I wish my life had a button like that.  I wish that I'd welcomed in the New Year with a sense of energy, expectation and joy.  I wish I'd felt released from some of the things that happened last year, like: Naomi spending the Summer in hospital; or my Step-Mum dieing in October; or the global recession helping donations to NYFC to tank so that paying salaries each month is impossible except for miracles; or being disappointed by people I thought were partners  in this Gospel thing; or one of the NYFC team being mugged; or my own consistent failure to live up to all I want to be; or one of any number of other pains to endure.

It's not as if God has been absent in all this, in fact the only reason I can mention any of it from here is that God has been definitely present throughout all this stuff.  how do I know you may ask?  Well, look at the financial side of the last year - the scale of the challenge at NYFC is beyond my ability and I can't pretend otherwise.  Each month we've approached payday needing x thousand pounds that we haven't got, and I have had almost no clue on how to 'fix' this.  A few times it's become a real point of stress and pressure on me, but each time through circumstance or people around me I've felt God telling me to stop making it about me and let it be about him.  Every time I've got to that point and given it up to Jesus again there's been a surprising cheque appear in the post the next day or so.  I don't believe in repeated coincidences!

Or, consider this: Naomi's illness and my step-mum's death meant that the times we had planned to have time-off together as a family (Naomi, Grace, Daniel & I) just could not happen, and instead life had a draining intensity we had not prepared for or expected.  By the end of October we were feeling pretty threadbare.  Where was God?  Well, he was speaking to a wonderful and godly woman who knows us and asking her to help us.  She paid for us to have a trip to Spain in November, and though we've said thanks to her and to God since then I don't think I can put into words how great a blessing that was.

And yet, here I am in January 2010, still wanting a reset.  What I realise though is this: I'm not a PC, despite Microsoft's latest ad campaign!

Back in September I was in Cromer with the NYFC team, and I felt God was speaking through the marker buoys by the pier there.  The waves were probably one or one and a half metres that day, and these marker buoys were getting pounded every couple of seconds, water pushing against them in every direction, wanting to rip them from their place and throw them up on the beach.  If the water had its way the buoys would have become worse than useless - a marker in the wrong place is not just not fulfilling it's purpose, it can be actively dangerous.  The buoys have a secret weapon though, and it's completely invisible to anyone who looks at them.  The buoys remain and fulfil their purpose because they are firmly anchored.  They may sway and move with the force a little but ultimately they ain't going anywhere.

It seemed to me that god was saying to us that storms would come in our lives and in NYFC, and that the key to surviving was to stay firmly anchored in his love.  Sure enough that very week the storms began as one of the team was mugged, and they haven't really stopped since...

So, whilst I want a reset button, the truth is there's no such thing, and there's not meant to be either.  I believe that in another twelve or eighteen months God may lead us to less violent waters, but in the meantime the way to endure is to know His love and anchor myself in it.  That means choosing to spend time building up my identity as a follower of Christ by doing things like this blog, by chewing on the words of the Bible, by letting music and songs about Him wash over my heart as I walk to work, and I think also by thinking more about how I communicate the love to others who don't believe.

If anyone's still reading, let me know what you think.  Maybe you can answer these questions:

1) How good a marker am I?  How much do you or others see Jesus through how I am?  That's a scary question to be putting up for public comment!

2) What exactly do you think of God's love?