Sometimes it just makes sense to reset . . . to focus on the fundamentals . . . to break things down to the foundational stuff. When things get a little hairy . . . when life kinda feels a bit out of control . . . when you seem to be drowning in complexity . . . when you seem to falling because of uncertainty . . . that’s a good time to focus on getting your feet well-planted on solid ground . . . to making sure your head’s above water and breathing the pure air of heaven itself. Sometime you just need to go back to the beginning.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. . . . And from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.” (John 1:1-4, 14, 16 ESV)

There is a very real sense of regaining stability when you go back to “In the beginning.” When my eyes are diverted from the chaos of circumstance . . . when my gaze shifts from the apparent unfairness of life’s random roads . . . and, instead, the focus becomes the living Word of God. When I consider afresh that He was in the beginning . . . that He was with God . . . and, that He IS God! When I’m reminded that this One who was “in the beginning” . . . that He who is the eternal Word . . . now lives in me so that the I no longer need to deal with the chaos on my own, but “the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Going back to the beginning reestablishes a measure of equilibrium.

He made all things . . . without Him nothing was made that has been made. He is Lord of the physical . . . the physical that works well . . . and the physical that doesn’t work so well. From cells gone rogue to weather patterns beyond withstanding . . . He is Sovereign over all . . . holding all things together . . . loosening His grip, as it pleases Him to fulfill His purposes . . . and to reveal His glory.

And we have seen His glory. Not like John did . . . not face to face (yet) . . . not transfigured and robed in unapproachable light (yet). But we have beheld the glory . . . through the inspired Word of God . . . and through the illuminating ministry of the Spirit within us and upon us. Through the eyes of faith . . . to all those who believed . . . we have encountered He who is the store of truth and grace . . . God’s fountain of living water . . . from the beginning . . . and for the present . . . and through eternal ages to come. Hallelujah!

And out of His fullness . . . from God’s eternal cistern carved out of the Rock of His Son . . . we can drink deep of “grace upon grace.” Unmerited favor beyond measure . . . heaven infused strength sufficient for the day and for the days to come. Found in Him . . . the Word . . . who was with God . . . who was God . . . in the beginning.

Oh blessed moments when the mind is distracted from the day ahead . . . when the soul can be still and know that He is God . . . when a divine “timeout” is taken . . . and things are reset . . . and foundation is reaffirmed . . . and I realize afresh that though my world can seem like shifting sand, I am, in reality, standing upon a Rock. When I find it hard to breath, I can draw deeply from the atmosphere of the heavenlies . . . when I’m feeling so out of control, I can rely and rest upon the Creator of all things who knows the way and has promised to shepherd me through the maze.

Yeah . . . sometimes, in order to step out into the the day ahead of you, it just makes sense to go back to the beginning. Amen?