In the Reset - God Speaks Today

“In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

 The smells of Thanksgiving  Day dinner wafted throughout my house, and I sat, waiting for nieces, nephews, and puppy to descend on my home for the festivities.  As I waited, I  reflected on the faithfulness of God and the myriad of ways He demonstrates His love to me.  My heart  swells whenever I think of all I have to be grateful for — not just what He’s done for me, but what He continues to do in me.   “Thank You” cascaded from my lips like a waterfall.

I’m grateful for His mercy extended when I was at my craziest, living my life to the beat of the Isley Brothers — “It’s your thing; do what you wanna do!” I am learning to be merciful because of His great mercy towards me.

I’m grateful for His grace that enables and empowers me to discover and then become the unique individual He has always known me to be.  It’s because of His great grace that I am learning  to give grace to others, no matter where they may be in the process of discovery and becoming.

I am grateful for His patience towards me in this process. I’ve not always cooperated with Him. But the Lord has always patiently waited, letting me know that long before  I  chose to trust Him, He’d chosen me. Letting me know that long before I fell in love with Him, He loved me.  It’s because of His patience with me that I am learning to be patient with others.

 I am grateful for forgiveness and restoration.  He never withholds either from me,  and I have learned to seek and to offer both quickly.   I am grateful for His love,  unconditional, deep, intimate, eternal — even when I feel unlovely, unlovable, unloving.  Because He is the personification of 1 Corinthians 13, I am learning to allow the Love that is God to flow from me unconditionally, deeply, intimately, eternally.

And while I am grateful for all my 63 years, I am immensely grateful for the last 30 years.  You see, it was on August 13, 1987 that I was filled with the Holy Spirit in, of all places, New York’s Madison Square Garden. Then early one morning  a few weeks  later, the Lord flooded my bedroom with His presence, spoke purpose and destiny to me, inviting me on the adventure of a lifetime.  I accepted the invitation and my life has never been the same.

As my 30th anniversary approached this past August, the Lord whisper one word to me:  RESET

Reset: (verb) to set again; to set, adjust, or fix in a new or different way; to become set again

I didn’t understand fully what He meant at the time, but over the days, weeks, (and now months) that followed He began to make it clear.  He was pressing the reset button, connecting 30-year-old dots, adjusting and fixing, cleansing, refreshing,  and bringing me back to the simplicity of what He spoke to me that September morning in 1987.

And I am grateful for the reset.  It hasn’t been easy, but it has been worth every moment of truth, every moment of remembrance, every moment of repentance, every moment of release.  I am grateful for the reset because in it  I realize that  what God spoke in 1987, He is still performing in 2017.  I am grateful for the reset because in it, I’ve regained focus to live out purpose and destiny in ways I couldn’t comprehend  thirty years ago.  In the reset I’ve experienced  greater levels of mercy, grace, patience, forgiveness, restoration, love.  And I am better able to extend what I’m  experiencing to others.

No, the reset has not been easy, but I’ve learned to  give thanks in the reset.

Maybe the Lord is speaking to you that this is your reset season. You see, no matter how long we have walked with the Lord, we are all in need, from time to time, of a reset;  we all need to either be set again or adjusted or fixed in a new or different way.   Embrace  the reset and embrace the process.  Then do as Paul instructs the church in Thessalonica: “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”   In the reset, give thanks. In the adjusting and fixing, give thanks.  In the loss that results in gain, in the breaking that results in wholeness, in the surrender that yields greater wisdom and freedom, in the process that results in transformation, give thanks.

The reset is God’s grace in action, and it’s bringing you and me  back to purpose and destiny as the Father has always intended — bringing us back to the place of being.  It’s in the reset that you and I become brighter reflections of the One in whose image we have been made.

And isn’t that what it’s really all about?

Blessings in the reset!

Photo Credit:  Bonnie Kratzer