Reset

Last spring I prepared a testimony to share with our church small group. I was reluctant because I've always considered my life uneventful and ordinary. But I began to feel differently as I examined my walk of faith from childhood until now. A pattern emerged of loving oversight, protection, correction and favor. I saw that what at first appeared random has instead been a slow but steady progression as God has drawn me further into His ways. As I wrote my faith journey, His watchful care over my faltering steps became evident, as well as my woeful tendency to wander off the path, into life by habit.

At the beginning of 2019 a prophetic word for the Body was "reset." Reset has the connotation that correction is needed--kind of a do-over. Such a word could feel negative, as if we've messed everything up and must begin again. This might be true of an earthly endeavor, but this is God we're talking about. When God beckons, when He gets our attention and whispers, "remember how you began?" Then a reset becomes an invitation with a promise.

Reset can actually mean many different things. A reset is to set in place again those things I knew when I was first saved that I have begun to forget. Things that have worn away or become commonplace by the wear and tear of daily life. A reset could be a reboot to fully complete a download of necessary updates for my operating system. It could be a sharpening of my gaze to bring the lovely One back into focus, a re-ignition of dwindling fire in my heart, warming me again to passion for Jesus. A reset is a reminder of why I am on this journey in the first place. A re-start of those things I did at first. All that could be overwhelming if it were a challenge to try harder to do all the things. But don't forget the promise... God doesn't invite us into anything He doesn't intend to empower us to do.

The reset is a call to return to first love, to remember 'the things I did at first,' not because God's all about His worker bees, but because He longs for relationship. He knows how easily I slide into habit and calls me back so I may return to love. Yeshua is worthy...full of worth. His heart towards His Bride has never wavered and His intention to complete His plan for the earth has not changed. He is beautiful, loving, fearless, and powerful. This is a season to recommit--to return to first love, to pledge our allegiance to Jesus, to wait for His guidance, provision and protection, to reaffirm that we belong to Him. 

And of course as soon as my heart is moved to agree, the tiny voice in my head immediately chimes in with, "easy to say, harder to do. You'll just mess it up...again."  And of course I will and God knows I will, but that's the beauty of the thing. My weak, wavering will was never going to get me down the highway. My only hope of making it to the end of my journey has always been Yeshua. Just Him alone and nothing else. His intention is so much better than my promise to act. What He says, He will do. My job is to believe and hold on. God knows me better than I know myself, and the miracle is that He loves and wants me anyway. How amazing is the love of Jesus, friend of sinners! As I look at my history of highs and lows with God, I find it consoling in the extreme that I can count on His unfailing love and His faithful determination to bring me to the finish line. 

My testimony is the ongoing story of an ordinary, faithless human, elevated not by any native virtue of my own but by the amazing, unmerited favor of the God of the universe. He loves me, because He loves me. Period. That is as unfathomable to me today as it was the day He first called me. I am under no illusion that He wanted me because I'd make a nice addition to the kingdom. Oh, the wonderful, immeasurable, inexhaustible mercy of God! He takes the weak, foolish things of this world and makes them royal, sits them at His table, and feeds them from His plate.  I want to remember, again and again Whose I am; I want to return to first love.

^"...I have this against you: you have abandoned the passionate

love you had for me at the beginning. Think about how far

you have fallen! Repent and do the works of love you did at first.

I will come to you and remove your lampstand from

its place of influence if you do not repent."

Revelation 2:4-5

The Passion translation (TPT)