reaction

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Your Reaction May Not Be The Best Reaction

Sometimes the best reaction to something is no reaction at all, to not get worked up one way or the other. 

your reaction may not be the best reaction

Now, of course, there are times when a quick reaction to something is required.

When you are told of a horrible accident, you react right away with emotion that fits the situation. If someone falls down, you react quickly to help them up.

A few years ago while I was playing hockey, one of the guys went down around the net. By the way he fell down everyone could tell this was no trip or fall. The guys immediately poured off the bench and went to his aid. 

He was having a heart attack and you should have seen the reaction – it was instantaneous. Guys started working on him immediately, others went looking for the defibrillator paddles. Someone grabbed a phone to call 911. 

That was a visible, quick reaction … but there are times you can’t tell someone’s reaction.

During covid when everyone was wearing masks, it was really hard to determine reactions when talking to people. You had to look at their eyes to see if possibly there was a smile behind the mask. It was very difficult to tell.

I wonder if during this time people were less funny or less dramatic because they couldn’t tell another person’s reaction to them.

Then there is something that always causes a reaction but should never produce a desire in us to react: weather forecasts. 

Weather people are trained to give us the information to get a reaction.

These people want us reacting to good weather like we just scored a goal, high-fiving everyone around. They want us to be down in the dumps if the weather is not going to be very good.

They want us in a puddle of despondency over a forecast of rain and high winds for the next seven days. 

But really, the best way to react to the weather forecast – on TV or an app or on your phone – is to just have no reaction.

They are wrong so often it not worth the effort to react one way or the other. You get yourself all excited or all upset for probably nothing. 

This week our daughter and her husband were planning to come to our cottage for a couple of days. 

My wife, Lily, checked her weather app to plan our time together. The forecast was for rain the whole time they were scheduled to be here. 

Lily was immediately disappointed. My response was, “Don’t worry about it; just wait.” 

Sure enough, there was no rain that night and we woke up the next day to sunshine and warm temperatures. 

If the weather people knew we were not reacting to their weather information maybe they would stop trying to play with our emotions and just focus on getting their weather predictions correct.

Here’s the thing: When something bad happens in our lives, we are quick to look for who to blame. A lot of the times God gets the blame. We ask God a lot of “why” questions, with a whiny, “poor me” attitude. Don’t be quick to react to the bad things in your life. Take them in stride, take them to God and allow Him to inform your reaction. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What have you been reacting to lately that you shouldn’t? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Crisis Reaction Time Is Crucial

You can not prepare for every crisis; sometimes you just have to react. 

crisis reaction time is crucial

The question is, “How well, do you react to a crisis?” 

Certainly some people react swifter and better than others when faced with something that is sudden and unexpected. 

I’ve seen it in hockey where a goalie is prepared for a shot from the point and then just in front of him the puck gets tipped. You can’t prepare for that; you can only react. And how fast that goalie reacts is the difference between the puck ending up in his equipment or the back of the net. 

The other day I was faced with a crisis. 

When COVID first hit, I started live-streaming a devotional to my congregation once a week on Thursday mornings at 8:30 am.

I took a break over the summer, but didn’t get back to doing them until the new year.

I don’t have a studio, so I have to set up for it each week. There are lights, a camera, tripod, iPad and computer all to set up. The set up takes just over a half hour. 

This week I was set up and ready to go one hour and forty-five minutes before I was to go live. 

About forty-five minutes before the devotional I got the streaming software active and set, just waiting for me to hit one button to go live. 

With twenty-five minutes to go, I hit the go live button. With five minutes to go, I switched the scene to a count down and music. 

It was all going perfectly: the picture on the screen was counting down and everything was set to automatically switch to the video feed of me looking into the camera and saying hi.

With under one minute to air, I was standing in my place. And then, all of a sudden, my camera fell from the tripod. 

What? I had forty seconds to air. I went for the camera, got hold of it and promptly put it back on the tripod. 

Everything was good; nothing had unplugged. 

I took a deep breath and counted down, 6, 5, 4, 3 … and then the camera fell off the tripod again! 

I went to grab the camera; this time the power cord had unplugged. 

I was live … the screen was black. I made a few comments like, “Oh no.” I sounded like Mr. Bill from the 70’s Saturday Night Live show. 

I plugged the power cord back in and turned on the camera. Then I swung around to face the camera, but everything was still black. I fiddled with the software in hopes to get the camera to connect again, but it was not happening. 

So quickly I switch my camera source to my laptop’s built-in camera and presto, I was visible. 

I thought it only took about a minute to do all that but looking back at the recording, the screen was dark for about 2 1/2 minutes. 

I need to work on my reaction time in a crisis.

Here’s the thing: What is the first thing you do when you face an unexpected crisis? I will bet that, when your adrenaline is flowing, your reaction is to do something – do something yourself. To lessen my reaction time, I need to first call on God for help and then let Him guide my next moves. I’m sure that most of us need to work on adding God to the beginning of our reaction time. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: At what point in your crisis reaction do you seek God? Leave your comments and questions below.

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