Hit the Reset Button on Your Family

Have you ever had technical issues with your computer and contacted tech support only to have them ask you: “Did you try restarting your computer?”

Of course you’ve heard them say that! It’s Tech Support 101. When in doubt, reboot. When nothing else is working, reboot. When you can’t even identify the problem, reboot. Restarting a computer seems to have miraculous healing powers on its operating system. One reason for this is that it shuts down programs that are running in the background that are unseen to the user, but are taking up valuable memory space. Another reason is that it automatically scans for viruses and other malware that are crippling the machine’s functions and deals with them accordingly. Still further, restarting a computer takes data that is stored in disorganized fragments and organizes them into readable and recognizable matrices in a process known as defragmenting.

Grace is the big re-set button for all of our relationships. By choosing an atmosphere of grace–the operating system of the gospel–we shut down unseen programs that are sapping energy from relationships. Programs like guilt, shame, toxic high-control, spiritual performance, and sin management are automatically shut down when we hit the grace reset button. In the atmosphere of a grace-based home, programs like these can’t thrive. They are contradictory to the very nature of grace. With God’s grace framing relationships we find we have much more energy to focus on programs that yield the result we want: healthy, highly functioning families.

Grace also exposes relational viruses and malware. Illnesses that infect the code of the family are things like legalism, fear, image control and passivity. Grace and truth are the anti-virus software God wants to imbed into the core of our relationships. Truth is the antidote to falsehood. Truth delivered in an atmosphere of grace resets family systems by exposing destructive behaviors and attitudes and replacing them with the black and white contrast of God’s love and forgiveness.

Grace can take a fragmented approach to marriage and parenting and give it cohesion and intentionality. It takes data stored in all reaches of the family members’ minds and organizes it in a helpful hierarchy that they can access and use to make proper relationship decisions. Grace takes all the fragmented strategies and methodologies that parents may have learned over the years and decodes them as well as prioritizes them so that they fall in line with a system that places the nature of God’s heart as its foundational operating system within relationships.

So go ahead: Hit the grace reset button. It will help heal malfunctioning relationships and bring joy and peace to your home.