"Gospel of reformatting" by Stephen M. Miller Bible blog of award-winning bestselling Christian author, Stephen M. Miller. for New Year's Eve, Thursday, 31 December 2015
REBOOT. Sometimes our computer needs a do-over, with a cleansing reformat that gets rid of all the junk files and fractured coding. It's a pain in the neck to do it. But it needs to get done if we want to keep everything running right. Sometimes we humans need to get rid of some of the junk in our lifes, too. Photo by CollegeDegrees360, flickr, CC2.
MY COMPUTER LOCKED ME OUT. It happened a few weeks ago, while I was finishing up my July release, A Visual Walk Through Genesis. I was working on the index for the back of the book when suddenly the computer wouldn’t boot up one morning. It trapped me inside a Windows startup loop.
“Well isn’t that just fine?”
Let’s say that’s what I said.
As it turns out, one of my hard drives had failed—a backup drive; not to worry since I have a backup in the cloud, too. The failed drive seemed to somehow produce a cascading effect, tripping the boots in my boot up.
Eventually, I had to call on my son to save me. Even he couldn’t break out of the loop, until we went back to his house and created an emergency rescue boot file—something I should have had, and will have for next time.
Since I was trying to put my book to bed, we did just a patch job of getting the system up and running again. We would rework the entire computer system after I finished the book and installed a replacement drive.
The book is now on its way to the printer. I have the replacement drive installed.
So I’m reformatting the computer as you read this. Wish me well.
My son tells me that from time to time it’s a good idea to reformat the computer, anyhow. Dump the broken and twisted coding that inevitably worms its way into the system as we add and delete software, hardware, and the files that come with them.
As we approach the beginning of a new year, wouldn’t it be nice if we could do that to ourselves? Give ourselves a do-over. A fresh start. A new beginning from the get-go of January 1.
We might not be able to do anything about the jerks, Judases, and jackasses traveling with us in our herd—whether they are our coworkers, our neighbors, or the relatives who could use a swift kick to anywhere but here.
- We can, however, do something about us.
- We can audit our life. We can take a look at our assets and debits. Not so much with money. But with relationships and matters of the heart and soul.
- Which people bring joy into our life and allow us to share joy with them? Maybe it would be healthy to spend more time with them this coming year.
- Which people drag us down and make us feel worthless? Maybe it would be healthy to confront them and, if necessary, back away from them.
- What behavior in our life shrinks our spirit, makes us feel bad about ourselves, and hurts our relationship with God? Maybe we should work a plan to change that behavior, with God’s help.
“Forget about what’s happened;
don’t keep going over old history.
….I’m about to do something brand-new.
It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
There it is! I’m making a road through the desert” (Isaiah 43:19).
Many Bible experts say that poetic prophecy is talking about what it’s like to follow Jesus, the Messiah God promised to send.
Paul put it this way:
“Anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other” (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Part of what it means to follow the teachings of Jesus and to live our life as good souls is that we keep our maintenance up to date.
Perhaps the end of the year is a good time to think about any necessary reformatting, upgrades, or phone calls for an emergency rescue.
For more about relationships
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