Turing Your Setback Into A Reset

The recent setback you experienced is only temporary. It will not stop the release of what God has planned for your life. Press forward using what you have and you will find that life will still work. The slowdown created by the setback has a reason. Make the best of what you have and the reason will be made known.

I just got my laptop back from a few days in the repair shop. It looked like a hard drive crash had taken place. Thankfully, it was only a small internal connection in my MacBook Pro that failed. The repair was covered as a service recall by Apple. When the malfunction first happened, I had visions of all my articles, books and works in progress being lost forever. Some of the sweetest words ever spoken were heard when the repair person said, “No problem. We’ll have this back to you in 2-3 working days.”

For those “2-3 working days” it felt as if I was thrust back into the Stone Age. While I truly love my iPhone it isn’t a computer with a real QWERTY keyboard. I am of the hunt and peck variety when it comes to typing on a smartphone. Recently, I saw a 12-year old girl using only her thumbs and typing faster than the kid who won the award for the fastest student in my high school typing class. I tried the thumb thing once and with my big thumbs it looked like I was typing in tongues and needed someone to interpret my script. For the last few days, I have pecked out words one letter a time using only my index finger. A few times I thought my finger resembled the beak of a rooster in a chicken coop pecking away at grit in the dirt.

I learned something during this experience. My iPhone was definitely not as productive as my MacBook but it still worked.  The temporary loss of my laptop forced me to slow down, not just in my ability to type, but in the way that I processed my surroundings. In the slowing that comes in these times, we begin to see things we would not normally see in a more expedient season when all the devices of our lives are up and running. If you have experienced what seems like a step back instead of a step forward, God has plans to use your new reality to reveal things to you that may have been overlooked in your normal reality. He did it for me and He will do it for you.