by Michael J Klassen
Years ago, while I was working fulltime as a freelance writer, I purchased a Compaq laptop that I loved. In fact, the first 14 months, I wore out two keyboards.
The only problem with the computer was that it rebooted at random times during the day. Back in the day, software wasn’t near as adept at automatically backing up our files on the hard drive. So, I could lose an hour or two of work if I hadn’t typed “control s” regularly enough. At times, I would be adding the finishing touches on a sentence or paragraph that, I was convinced, was a work of art in its own right, when suddenly the screen would go blank and the computer would start all things new. On more than one occasion, I nearly threw my beloved laptop into the concrete wall in my basement office.
Yet, other times when my computer would start slowing down, rebooting was the answer to my problems.
New Year’s Day is all about rebooting. Many people make resolutions this time of the year. “I don’t make resolutions, I make goals,” someone commented to me earlier this week. But what’s the difference?
The packed gyms in my community this first week of the year prove that more people than me make a commitment to reboot their lives and start losing weight. But by the end of the month, the number of people in the gym revert to pre-New Year’s Day figures.
All of us are wired with the deep desire for new creation. Movies like Groundhog Day and 50 First Dates call out to that deep desire. Countless times growing up, I wished I could start over on the semester at school. I just wanted to reboot my backlog of homework.
Wouldn’t it be great if we could truly reboot our lives whenever we wanted, just like we can reboot our computers?
The good news for all of us is this: God is all about rebooting. “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23). Every morning, God pours out his love and forgiveness on us.
And here’s further evidence of the God who reboots: Paul wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Not only does God pour out his love on us every day, but we also live every day as a new creation.
So what does it mean to live the “rebooted” life?
It means that God’s forgiveness of us is complete. The sins of our past have been completely erased by the blood of Jesus. Our past no longer needs to haunt us. We get to start over!
When we give our lives to Jesus, we get to start over every day! Reboot.
Conversation Starter
- Share a time when you got a chance to reboot.
- What does the rebooted life look like to you?
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Michael co-pastors The Neighborhood Church with Eugene Scott in Littleton, Colorado.
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