We’re recently started a new series called “reset”.  Last week, we talked about how Jesus makes it possible to reset all of life, giving us a fresh start in life that impacts every key area.  We’re going to look at many of these in depth, starting this week with how Jesus resets our goals.

When my wife and I were having our first baby, we were encouraged to write birth plan.  This is where you write down a plan for who’s in the room, and make choices about everything from epidurals to breastfeeding to how bright the lights should be.

I know someone who works closely with an OB, and she has some wild stories about how people let some of the small choices get in the way of the big picture.  In a perfect, routine childbirth, a parent’s ideal may be to have the lights just so, no pain with no drugs, and a favourite song playing at the exact moment the child is born.

But when things don’t go perfectly, there are some people who forget the point, or the goal.  They start to argue for their personal preferences, instead of arguing for a baby’s health.

When my wife and I were writing up a birth plan, we decided to stay goal focused.  The goal was to have a healthy child.  All our personal preferences, hopes and dreams for the birth experience were going to be expressed, but we’d drop them in an instant if things were going wrong.

That was a moment we reset our goals…to make sure they were focused on the right thing.  It’s not a bad thing in life to regularly reset our goals, and ensure we’re focused on the right ones.  Not just in childbirth.

We can get so bogged down in day to day tasks we forget the point in our careers.  Do we live to work, or work to live?

I heard a TED Talk (attached) that shared the job description of a hospital janitor.  It was what you’d expect – mop, clean, scrub, restock.  It had nothing at all to do with hospital patients and healthcare.  But some psychologists interviewed hospital janitors.  They met one who told them about how he stopped mopping the floor because a patient was walking slowly down the hall. Another told them how she ignored her supervisor and didn’t vacuum the visitor’s lounge because there were some family members who were there all day, every day.

In the drudgery of cleaning, these janitors remembered the real goal of the hospital, and perhaps even of their human race.  They reset their goals to be about more than cleaning, but about caring for others.

Question: When have you had to reset your goals?  Why did you do it?

Reminder: We are reading the Bible in sync as one community – so check out today’s reading here.

Reminder: The best way to grow spiritually this year is to join our Christianity 101 in the Cafe Course in Pickering starting this Wednesday,  January 22nd. Register for you and a friend today!

Read the Bible in Sync Today

Ryan Sim - March 17, 2014

Monday - A New Idea - Reset Nature

Hi. Welcome to Redeem the Commute. I’m Ryan, your host for the daily challenges. We’re in the middle of a series right now called Reset, where we look at how following Jesus resets our thinking about various topics in life. This week we’re thinking about how Jesus resets our view of nature. The daily challenges are meant to help us explore what it means to follow Jesus, even in the midst of a busy commuting lifestyle. We have a rhythm that we follow each week to help us explore our topic. We introduce the idea on Monday, then Tuesday’s we study it in the Bible. Wednesday’s we try to let the Bible’s teaching sink in, and change and transform our thinking. Thursday’s we try to act out what we’ve been learning. Friday’s a day for prayer and reflection, and then Saturday’s a day for rest. Sunday is a day for community, because even when we are scattered and busy, it is important that we come together as one community to explore Jesus and what it means to follow him in one place. That’s why this Fall we’re planning to launch a new worshiping community in Ajax called Redeemer Church. Stay tuned for more information. When I say that following Jesus resets our view of nature, you may wonder where I’m going with this. Am I going to say that following Jesus means we don’t need to worry about the environment? That we’re all going to fly away to Heaven someday, so it doesn’t matter what happens here, this is just kind of a disposable world? Well, that’s actually not consistent with Christian belief, and we’re going to explore this week how Christian belief resets our view of nature in a new and unexpected way perhaps. I’m standing here in the beauty of nature. This is a place where a lot of people have moments where they feel particularly in awe of God. A lot of people say things like, “Oh, I don’t need to go to church. I can just worship God in nature.” There’s a lot of truth to that. We can worship God in nature. Nature is a place where we can really appreciate God’s handiwork as a creator. Where we can really see God as an artist. I think there’s more to worshiping God than that. Of course, that’s the importance of Christian community that we’re going to be trying to live out when we come together as Redeemer Church. That doesn’t diminish the importance of those God moments that we can have in nature. A few years ago, one of my favorite parts of my job was that I got to go on a hiking trip every year to the Adirondack Mountains with the counselors in training from a local summer camp. It was the highlight of my year because it was just something I love to do in the first place. The Adirondack’s are one of my favorite places in the world, just all sorts of mountains. It’s like a playground if you’re into hiking and rock climbing. We’d go there and we’d spend about three days. One day just kind of hiking in, and then two days where we’d do a big hike. The first year that we went, I had to think long and hard about how this was going to be more than just a physical exercise. How would we make this trip, since it was a church camp, how would we help this help us to open our eyes to how God had created the world around us, and how God was a part of our lives, including when we go on a hike like this? I found the Psalms of Ascent. They are some of the Psalms that you could find in the Bible, and there were particular ones that were known to be the Psalms that people said, or sang, as they climbed the mountain to the temple in Jerusalem. If they were headed to the temple, they were headed there to worship. What we did, is on our mountain climbing trip, as we hiked, we said these Psalms of Ascent. There were some of them that we just kind of timed out. Every time we took a break, we read one together and prayed. There were other times that I had a Psalms of Ascent ready in case we needed one. For example, somebody eventually did turn their ankle a little bit and got hurt. We had a Psalms of Ascent ready for that, that talked about God keeping us safe and helping us stay protected, and even talked about our ankles not being turned, so it was perfect for that. We were able to bring together our faith in the God who creates, with our enjoyment of what he’d created. We were able to make our hiking and climbing experience a spiritual experience. When we finally got to the top of the mountain, we stopped and we had Communion. We had, “a mountaintop experience,” is what people call them. One of those moments that I’ll never forget, and I know that the teenagers and the supervisors who were hiking with us will never forget it either. It was just incredible to have that moment of Communion with one another and with God, when it felt like there was nothing else to distract us, nothing else to separate us from God, but simply some air. That was my experience with God in nature. You can learn a lot from an experience like that. One base thing that I remember is recognizing that God hasn’t abandoned nature. God created something beautiful and said it was good, and it’s still good, and there’s still a lot of beauty in it. We don’t want to forget that as we try to figure out how to live in this world using the resources we’ve been given wisely. Well, we’re going to explore this topic a lot more this week, but I’ve got a question for you to think about, and I hope you’ll discuss it with other people you know, from the train, bus, or from work, or from home, wherever you connect with people. Question: Have you ever had a God moment in nature? A moment when nature pointed you to God and what God had done? Maybe share it with that person who you’re discussing our daily challenges with. What was it like? What did you learn? How did it change you? Well, have a great discussion. I’ll see you tomorrow as we study in the Bible the connection between God and nature. Bye for now.

Related Topics: Ecology, Environment, Nature, Reset | More Messages from Ryan Sim | Download Audio

From Series: "Reset"

When our computers get bogged down and unmanageable, we know to hit a reset button to simply start over. Wouldn't a reset button be great in life? We know it would be complicated, with all our responsibilities and routines to consider, but imagine the freedom and refreshment of a new start in life! What would you do differently? What would you pay more attention to, and what would you ignore? How would you avoid getting bogged down and broken again? The great news is, in coming to earth as Jesus Christ, God has begun to "reset" our universe, our world, and even us. We're invited to start over with him, in what he calls his kingdom. We're invited to start a new life with a clean slate. What gets wiped clean, and lived differently, when God resets our lives? We'll explore how God resets these key areas of our lives: Reset: Goals Reset: Time Reset: Money Reset: Work Reset: Body & Food Reset: Sex & Marriage Reset: Family Reset: Compassion Reset: Nature Reset: Society Reset: Death Join us for the next several weeks, and invite God to reset your life.

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