New Reminders: Restoration
by Ardith Hoff
Restoration is the process of returning something or someone to a former state of being or condition or to return a piece of property to its previous owner. For example, when we go into the hospital for a health issue, we hope to return home in much better condition than we were when we went in. When we take our car into the garage, we hope the mechanic will return it to us in good working order. Something or someone needing restoration has lost or broken something that needs to be returned to its original, or even better, condition. The restoration of relationships, broken families, and even physical bodies is usually a long process. Restoration of a lost faith can also take a long time and go through many phases.
Because God decided to give human beings the ability to reason and to choose, He gave up His own ability to treat us like puppets and to decide our every thought and action. That does not mean that He gave up His ability to influence us, it simply means that He has allowed us to choose how we will respond to Him. We are free to deny, defy, or embrace Him. We are free to believe in God’s word or dismiss it as fiction. We are free to accept His saving grace or reject it. But once we have heard and believed the truth, accepted Jesus as our savior and then wondered away from that relationship, God does not leave us alone. He continues to prod us with continuous nudges to return to Him. God is in the restoration business!
If we allow Him access to our hearts, God will help us replace our lost faith with a new and more stable version. He will renew our understanding of his grace. He will revive our enthusiasm for sharing His message, and He will refresh our joy at returning to a new and better relationship with Him.
The story of Job is a prime example, in the Bible, of how God works. Job lost everything, his home, his health, his family, his dignity and his faith. Job suffered horrible pain! God used Jobs desperation to show him the way back to a life with a restored and rewarding faith in Him. He has promised to do the same for us.
“I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice” Ezekiel 34:16 “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 6:33 God will restore us!