The Reset

Day 1 Introduction: "One Shining Moment, You Reached For The Sky!" I absolutely love that famous song, which plays during the highlight video of the just-completed final Monday night game of the men's college basketball tournament! Whether my favorite team has won or lost, my family knows that the volume is going way up on the sound system in my house when the highlight video starts playing. In that "One Shining Moment" video, every possible human emotion and reaction to the tournament's games is on full display in the faces of the players, coaches, fans, cheerleaders, and even the various team mascots. Sports enthusiasts know that this three-week period has forever been marked on annual calendars as "March Madness." Each year, the college basketball season culminates when the tournament bracket positions sixty-plus teams in head-to-head competition, giving their utmost to be the national champion that year. Every team but one will ultimately lose their final game of the season. The one team left standing at the end of the "Road to the Final Four," proudly accepts and lifts high above their heads the coveted trophy of the national championship. That is when the synchronized music video starts and we get the spine-chilling latest version of the epic "One Shining Moment!" In two or three fast-paced minutes, we see everything from spectacular plays and critical turnovers, to buzzer-beating winning shots and the oh-so-close desperation of last-second misses. Some players are leaping into human piles of joy and celebration, while others are crumbling to the floor in exhaustion and disappointment. There are hands held high in jubilant victory and then there are faces buried in hands, hiding tears of defeat. The cameras often zoom in to catch and freeze-frame those split-second, raw, and spontaneous facial expressions revealing the deepest inner emotions that emerge from valiant attempts to survive and play just one more game. For each player, it all comes down to the all-out effort given and to the pursuit of doing one's best, win or lose. It is all on the line! If they have given it their very best, then they have not let themselves or their teammates down. Only one team and one "Most Outstanding Player" will take home the top trophies. However, in reality, every player and every coach who participates in the "big dance," can finish his season feeling like a winner. It is rewarding enough just to make it into the tournament and to have given it your best shot. It is their "one shining moment!" That Is What We All Want Out Of Life! For all of us, life is a journey and we really want to give it our best shot every day! Even though we can only see in part where our daily journey is taking us and what the cumulative outcomes will be, we would like to feel good about our efforts and ourselves at the end of each day. Perhaps a highlight video each evening showing our "one shining moment" for that day would help us all sleep a little better and be more excited about facing tomorrow's agenda and portion of the journey. Yet deep inside, most of us end our days yearning for a different routine with a sense of purpose and meaning, at least something that would inspire the best out of us each day. If only we could first escape the self-inflicted busy rat race that we live in, then we could go for it and try to reclaim the elusive life that we should be living and that we are currently missing on most days! In your life's journey so far, do you feel that on most days you are living up to the full potential of your life? On the other hand, do you often lack a sense of real direction and purpose in your life? (Skip to later in chapter) You Can Reset Your Life If That Is What You Really Want! This book, called The Reset, presents you with a 28-day journey to change your life by changing the way you think. We will use the analogy of a "reset button" to help us imagine the possibility of recapturing the kind of day-to-day life that we would all like to experience and enjoy. Perhaps you know the feeling that you have experienced when your computer freezes up on you, or without cause, it totally changes the entire configuration on your screen. You have no clue how to fix the problem and there are probably no computer geeks living in your household to help you. The only hope you have is that maybe there is an option of somehow going back to an original default setting. If you have a problem with some other kind of high tech device, you may even have the possibility of pushing a reset button that will return everything back to the original settings and give yourself and your sanity a fresh start. The Reset will gradually enable you to activate and implement a 28-day reset of your thinking about yourself and about the one who originally put you together. You will soon be enjoying a fresh start to your life with a completely restored perspective. Soon you will know what real joy, strength, and inner peace is like. We live in rapidly changing and difficult times. So why not give yourself and your thinking a reset and discover how to live your life with new meaning and purpose, and go out into the world every day with an overflowing confident hope, despite the daily challenges that you will face? Start now by reading this biblical verse and believe that a life-changing reset is possible for you in the next 28 days! "Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think." Romans 12:2 (NLT) Congratulations! I welcome you to this exciting 28-day reset journey!