Daily Devotional: Re-Start

"He left that place and entered their synagogue; a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, 'Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath?' so that they might accuse him. Then he said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other." — Matthew 12:9-10, 13 NRSVUE

I turned on my computer and it was all wrong. Really wrong. The background was nothing I had ever seen. All my files were empty. All of them. The screen began to fill with how to run my new computer. Not good.

Being technically savvy (hush!), I knew how to fix it. I turned it off. I waited a couple of minutes and then turned it back on. And everything came back as it should.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could do this with life? When things are a mess and not as it “should be,” wouldn’t it be great to shut-down for a moment or two, recoup and then start again?

Oh wait. Life can be like that. We can re-start if we want, if we have the courage to step up. To the man with the disfigured hand, Jesus said, “Stretch out your hand.” As the man did so, everything changed for him, but it didn’t happen until he moved. Not until he reached out for what he really wanted.

Are things not the way they should be? Let’s take the weekend to re-set our dreams and visions in our mind. Come Monday, we will re-start all over again. It’s OK. We still have time.

Prayer: Lord? I’m not where I want to be, and some of the dreams You gave me are fading away. I’m re-starting. Please, lead the way.

Rev. Dr. Michael Sanders has books of Devotions. This devotion is found in A Feast of Wild Blackberries. It can be purchased by contacting Write21Mike@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Daily Devotional: Re-Start