Time for the reset button...

I like to bowl. I went with some of our teens from my church's week or so ago - it was fun.

It's not a humorous statement, because I know you are picturing a big loud fat guy in a strange style of shirt that is called a "bowling shirt" because it doesn't fit into any other category of shirts. I do not own any of those shirts...

I know it's not a really popular sport (not sure if it's even in that category), but it's fun throwing a heavy ball at some wooden pegs to see how many you can knock down. It's a simple concept and that's what makes it fun.

Keeping it simple...

We have many simple concepts, in life, and bowling reminded me of one of them.

The reset button.

When you bowl, a pin sometimes gets stuck.

It gets twisted in the mechanism or sits in a spot that makes it just twirl around and not enter the machine correctly.

It bugs the fire out of me when something gets stuck in y life. It gets in the way of goals, or plans, or what I need to do that day. It happens though and the best reaction I can have is to be patient and realize that the Lord has a plan for every strange thing that happens in my day.

The stuck pin may have caused a reset that allowed me to get a strike on the next roll.

When you bowl, a pin sometimes falls down, seemingly by itself.

Once in awhile the pins are set down and one or some of them just fall down, as the machine goes up.  

Life is like that too.

It may move too fast causing us to fall over.

Life, like the bowling pin, is a balancing act. One wrong move and the tipping point occurs. It's hard to keep in balance everyday. You have to keep your "bowling pins" in the right order. You can't put your job as the head pin, or a hobby, or money, or your dream, or any other thing - only the Lord can be the head pin in your life. The best part of that is that He controls all of the other pins and their direction - obviously you don't try to knock the Lord down, but if you keep Him first, then the rest of the "pins" in your,life will stay perfectly balanced. 

Don't worry if you fail here, just get the Lord back to number one and He will get everyone and everything back in line. 

The fallen pin, may be a way for the Lord to get my priorities reset and properly focused.

When you bowl, a pin may fly out into the lane.

It happens a lot when I bowl - you know the power that I have and the force of the impact with the kid’s 5 pound ball that I use…pins everywhere.

Really, it should be rare, but it happens once in a while. A pin gets away form the normal spot and flies into the lane or the gutter, but way too far for the arm to grab it in.

You have to call over to the desk and get someone to walk down in-between the gutters (which is absolutely hilarious to watch) or they have to come out from the back of the lane (another very fun thing to watch, as their legs all of a sudden drop down behind the pin area, sometimes dangling for a moment). 

Both of these ways stop the game and make people wait. If the bowling alley is busy, it can be quite some time. It forces patience or frustration - your choice.

In our everyday life, we have times like this:

A job loss.

A car accident.

A health issue.

A death in the family.

A crisis of some sort, that stops us in our tracks.

The flying pin, may be a way for the Lord to set us still for a while and reset our direction.

Lessons Learned: Most everything in life can teach us, if we’re willing to learn. We need to hit the reset button sometimes.

Thoughts: Do you like bowling?

#failalot

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