A beautiful part of resurrection is and will be restoration. 

Resurrection is the restoring of life; the restoring of relationship.

 

I feel a deep, almost desperate need for restoration, for this “bringing something back to its original condition, returning something to its original owner, returning something to an unimpaired or improved condition.” 

 

From where I sit and look around me it seems that everything needs repair and restoration:

my ceiling, my car, my furniture, my finances, my relationships, my attitude, the government, relationship between races, religion, and on and on.

As I look inward I see my soul, my mind, my mouth, my body, my attitude, my outlook – all in some state of disrepair.

 

Our current pandemic-plagued world makes me long for the restoration of face-to-face human contact, for being able to leave my house without fear, without the pressure to filter and distance every move, without covering my face and my hands and my space. I long for the health and healing of people: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. 

 

My heart shares David’s cry, “Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice…Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing (inclined, generous) spirit to sustain me” (Ps. 51:8,12).

 

I long for sustenance that comes from roots sunk deep by the streams of living water! I long for restoration that begins now and images the Kingdom of God as it was intended and indeed will one day be.

 

God, you have “placed eternity in our hearts” (Eccl. 3:11), and this is what calls us and is the growing seed of our longing for restoration.

 

We long for restoration to our original condition: perfect, unimpaired, unfiltered relationship with God and others. 

We long for restoration to our original owner: we belong to Yahweh, not to fear or disease or doubt or death.

We long for restoration to our improved condition: new heavens and new earth, new glorious bodies in perfect, unmasked eternity.

 

Day 1

Genesis 2

Read this slowly. Let yourself be reminded of the original condition and the original owner of life itself and of your life. Think relationally: of our intended relationship with God, with creation, with each other, and even with ourselves. The vulnerability and safety Adam and Eve had in their relationships with everything around them is  summed up richly in the phrase, “They were both naked and unashamed.” Now, turn your thoughts to prayer.

 

Day 2:

Psalms 1:1-3 Jer 17:7,8

One of the ancient words for prayer, euchomai, carries the meaning “to wish or to hope forward.” As you read Psalm 1, what is your hope and, therefore, prayer?

 

Day 3: 

Psalm 51

Write your own Psalm as your prayer for restoration. 

 

Day 4:

John 5:1-15

As you read and reflect on this story from Bethesda (which translates “house of mercy”), do you see any of yourself in this man? Any hopelessness of resignation, any sense of victimhood, any deep desire to be whole and restored? Might Jesus have anything to say to you here?

 

Day 5:

Ezekiel 47:1-12

Take in this rich image of water flowing from all sides of the temple, the House of God, and bringing life, restoring life and flourishing to everything and everyone. Does this image call to something in you? Something deeper, better, more beautiful? Try to express that calling to God in your own very personal words.

 

Day 6:

Revelation 21:1-7

Genesis 2 is at the beginning of the great story God is writing in history. Revelation 21 paints a picture of the magnificent restoration that God will bring about at the story’s end. How does your soul respond to meditating on the ending of God’s great story?

 

Reflection:

WHEN I LOOK TO THE MOUNTAINS 

by Randy Stonehill

 

When I look to the mountains I can see you there

In the wild churning ocean I can feel you there

In the warm summer breeze Your voice is in the air

Oh my Lord

You reflect Your perfection in the smallest leaf

In your vastness You render time a captured thief

I stand naked before You in amazed belief

Oh my Lord

 

Oh my Lord my Creator, You have captured my heart

With a love I can never repay

And I fall to my knees to try to tell You what words could never say

 

Though You hold all creation in Your holy hands

Though the world is as weightless as a grain of sand

Still You told me my name and gave me strength to stand

Oh my Lord

 

Oh my Lord my Creator, You have captured my heart

With a love I can never repay

And I fall to my knees to try to tell You what words could never say.