Reboot
The other day we had a pastor and his family visiting us from Angola. The pastor’s son, Josué, came to me one day and said he had received a prophetic word for us. He likes to speak to us in English and said that the word he had received was: “Reobote”. Since he was speaking in English and my ears were tuned to English, when he said “Reobote”, I heard “reboot”. “Reobote” is the Portuguese word for Rehoboth. He then went on to explain that God was giving us a secure place of peace in which we would bear much fruit. It was then that I understood that he was meaning to say Rehoboth and not reboot. Rehoboth was the name given to a well that Isaac had dug near Beersheba. After Abraham’s death, the wells that he had dug had been filled in by the Philistines. As Isaac redug the wells of his father, the Philistines of Gerar quarreled with him over the wells. With each conflict, Isaac moved on until he came to Rehoboth. In redigging this well, Isaac found peace. The name Rehoboth means: “The Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.” (Gen. 26.22)
I was blessed by this word given to me from this young, servant of the Lord, but what stuck in my heart was the word “reboot”. Reboot is a recent addition to our dictionary and takes its meaning from computer technology. It is the process of restarting a computer. Rebooting is sometimes necessary to recover from an error or to re-initialize drivers or hardware devices. It involves the turning off and then turning back on the computer. I had a computer once that got so clogged up with unwanted spam messages that it would go on strike. From time to time I had to clean out my trash bin, delete unwanted programs and messages, then shut things down and start it up again. It was in the place of “Reboot” that I found room to be fruitful and productive once again.
At times we need to reboot our life, not just our computers. When you are stuck in doing what you are not passionate about, when your life is driven by fears and controlled by the pressure to perform, then it is time to reboot. When conflicts with others are more common than not, it is time to reboot. When God seems distant and your prayers empty, it is time to reboot. When the expectations that others have placed on you are too hard to bear, it is time to reboot. Rebooting is restarting. It is getting back to the primary purpose and calling of your life. It is to return to functioning as you were created to function.
Rebooting is to unplug, or disconnect, with what is going on in your life and find God. It is to stop the busyness and have an encounter with God. Moses went up the mountain, Paul went to the desert and Jesus went off to be alone to reconnect with the Father. You may say that you have too many demands on your life to reboot and that too many people depend on you to “unplug”, but the truth is that unless you reboot, you will not be able to go forward. Time off is not wasted time. It is time to readjust your priorities, reevaluate your responsibilities and renew you “first love”. Today is the day to start again. Today is the day of new beginnings. As you renew you strength with time “off” from the pressures and time “on” with God, you will mount up with wings like eagles, you will run and not be weary and you will walk and not faint. (Is. 40.31)
Scriptures to meditate on:
Gen. 26.17-25; Is. 40.31; 42.9; II Cor. 5.17; Rev. 2.3-5;