It’s Time To Unplug And Reboot
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
(James 4:8)
In our area we’ve been hearing that every one who has cable must order an adapter for the tv’s in their homes that o have one cable box for multiple tv’s. We must do this by a certain date. We don’t have a cable box and we don’t plan to get one because we really don’t watch tv hardly at all. So as I sat down to have my coffee and check out the morning news (I said hardly at all…I watch the news), I turned on the tv and all that was there was a blue screen. I pressed the power button on the controller again and nothing. I hit the controller in my hand to see if maybe it needed a good jarring but still nothing. So I text my husband saying it must have started already (though the date was around April 12th) because I can’t get anything. As I sat drinking my coffee, he sent me a text but when I went to look at it and open up to my screen on my phone, it was locked up and wouldn’t display the screen. No matter how many times I tried, it remained black. Just a few times the screen would display only to go black again within a few seconds. By this time I was thinking “you’ve got to be kidding!” So I fiddled with the phone for a bit and then went into the kitchen to sit at the table and finish drinking my coffee and contemplate what was happening. As I sat there, the phone all of a sudden rebooted on its own and then returned to normal. I text my husband about the weirdness only to have him suggest turning our tv off manually. For some reason that never occurred to me (like it had when I was a kid and we had no choice but to turn it off manually). I tried but it still would not turn off. So I decided to unplug it and plug it back in and to my joy it turned on. Ok, my joy was that although we do like to watch movies together, I didn’t have to go out and waste money on purchasing another tv. So, me being me, I began to think about what just happened. Several thoughts came to mind but God began to minister to me about something I needed to know and do.
Lately, I have been feeling stuck. We’ve all been there…stuck in the same rut or position and no matter how hard you try you can’t seem to get out of it. I have felt this way in a few areas of my life and had been praying about it recently. So now I look at what just happened with both my tv and cellphone. They became stuck or frozen in one position and unable to move and do what they are supposed to do. It’s the same with us. We go about our day to day lives doing what we think we love doing (most of the time) and just living, but somewhere along the way we begin to feel stuck or frozen. No matter how hard we try to get out of the stuck mode, we can’t. Or it seems we are able to take a tiny step forward only be pushed back into the same position again. It can become quite frustrating.
So as I sat and allowed myself to be ministered to, what it all came down to is that sometimes we need to unplug ourselves from the world and plug ourselves back into the one who can recharge us…God. We need to reboot! There is rebooting and then there is an emergency reboot where you have to do a couple things at one time in order to get the phone back to working order. I say this because that same night my daughter called me asking me to look up something online because her phone did the exact same thing as mine did and she had to do an emergency reboot holding down two buttons at the same time. I’m sure my phone has it too but I’m not tech savvy and didn’t know it.
When we unplug from the world, it means we put everything aside…cellphones, computers, tv and even people, which includes loved ones…things that can distract us so much we can become overloaded and freeze up or get stuck. We live in a world where it’s constant movement and busyness. The thought of just sitting in our backyards and relaxing during a free moment doesn’t even come to mind anymore because there is no time for it. Our minds are constantly filled with things to do and if you think about it, our free moments are spent on a computer or cellphone. Go ahead, look around you. All we see is people looking down at their phones or handheld games. We carry the phones and games everywhere we go, afraid to leave them behind. In reality, we are bound to them. Although we still go places and do things with our families, our minds aren’t fully on the true enjoyment of the time together because we are looking down at our phones. Sadly, they even take up our attention in church. True, many look at the Bible verses during the service to follow along, but more are entertaining their minds with other things rather than setting aside the time to worship the Lord. This is known as idolatry.
As I continued to ponder what the Lord was giving to me, the thought then occurred to me to look at my email at the scripture and devotionals that came in the day prior. As I read each of them, I was surprised at the message they displayed. Each one a separate email but each one a clue to what I really needed to do:
“Stop and look, fixing your eyes on Jesus. Go and pray in secret because Jesus can break every chain. It is more blessed to give than to receive.“
So that is my message to you today. Unplug yourself from the world and reconnect yourself into God. Stop what you’re doing and look up and fix your eyes on Christ. Now go and pray in secret because Jesus can break every one of your chains. He can set you free from your stuck position. You must give Him the time and then give others your time and soon your focus will be off of you and your problems and then you can continue to move forward again.
“Lord, help me to unplug myself from the world and reconnect into You. I am stuck and I can’t move! Help me to find peace in the midst of the chaos by sitting with you and enjoying the silence of the moment while I wait for you to speak. Break my chains Lord so I can give time to others instead of wasting the precious time you have given me. I ask this in Jesus name…Amen.”