SEEKING LEVEL GROUND

Exploring scripture and seeking God's word to guide us to walk in the safety of His level ground.

Restoration – Our Stories in God’s Hand

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” Because you are important everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes, with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished, and nothing will ever be the same again.” by Wm. Paul Young

Our Bible is full of God’s word telling us of His restoration for His people. Our dictionaries tell us restoration means to bring something back to its original condition. Our Bibles tell us that to be restored by God means He more than makes up for our losses and brings us to a condition better than we ever were!

Out God is a restoring God. God restores us to be better than we were before we encountered hurt, pain, brokenness, feelings of failure and even a heart blown wide open either by our own actions, the actions of others or as a consequence of living in a world filled with sin.

So many times our stories include ones of brokenness, but when placed in God’s hands they can become treasures for ourselves and through us and God’s work in us they become treasures for others. As people we often want to throw away broken things and as such, we often hide our own stories of brokenness and want to portray ourselves as bright shiny all together “things” rather than risk rejection.

But our stories all belong to God and each of them has worth and value and God has a purpose for them. Nothing that happens in our lives is without purpose. As we give our stories to God, turn to Him, and allow Him to change us, heal us and restore us, we let the world know the miracle of His word, and His light can shine through every crack in us.

Thomas Wilder’s one act play, “The Angel That Troubled the Waters” is based on John 5:1-4. John tells of an invalid man who sat by the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem for 38 years. Tradition tells us that here the invalids, and those blind or paralzyed would wait for an angel to come and stir the waters, and the first one in the pool would be healed. In Wilder’s play a physician suffering from depression comes to the pool seeking to be healed. He asks the angel to heal him and he is denied. The angel tells him this moment is not his. The physician then pleads for help in a broken voice but continues to be denied, the angel says, “without your wound where would your power be? It is your very remorse that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In loves service only the wounded soldiers can serve. Draw back.”

It is through our vulnerability, brokenness, and turning to God and putting our stories and wounds into His hands to heal and restore us that we can show and share His light with the world. God prospers us so we can prosper others. As we are told in 2Corinthians 1:4, “who comforts in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

But how does God tell us that He restores us? Let’s look at Deuteronomy 30:1-6. Deuteronomy 30 speaks to us of the covenant between God and Israel. And this covenant is not only an agreement to be kept by both parties, but it includes forgiveness and 2nd and 3rd, and on and on chances. It tells us that when we break the covenant and do not follow God and His commands for our lives, if we return to God, He will restore us. In verse 2 it says when we return to the Lord and obey all God commands with all our heart and soul God will restore our fortunes and have mercy on us, and God will gather us from wherever we have ended up.

So, we are told that we are to obey all God commands with all of our heart and soul. That sounds like a tall order that is realistically beyond all of us, and that is because it is. So how are we then to obey all God commands and do so with all our heart and soul. As we go to verse 6 God’s word tells us that it is God who will circumcise our heart so we will love Him with all our heart and soul and then we can obey His voice. Our return to God is an act of His grace and is all God’s doing. To circumcise our hearts is to cut away the hardness that surrounds them, in so doing our hearts are softened and opened to receive His love and forgiveness and be transformed by it. This is an act only God can do. (to listen to the podcast Circumcised Heart follow this link: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2114739/episodes/13438057 ) God knows the way we need to live, and all we need to do to live well and be blessed. He has set this way before us in His commands and then speaks to us again of this when He comes to us as Jesus, that we may know and follow Him.

As we come to Deuteronomy 30:11 God’s word tells us that this commandment to obey and love God with all our heart and soul, is not too hard for you or too far removed from you. In verse 30:14 we are told the “word” (which throughout scripture is Jesus) is very near to us it is in our mouth and in our heart so we can do it. God tells us that the word is so close to us it is in us. Before God ever reveals Himself to us as Jesus, He tells us that the word is near to and in us. God is near to and in each of us. As God works in our hearts to circumcise them and enable us to love HIm, our hearts are turned towards Him. We will be able to hear His word, to believe His word, to speak His word and do and understand His word. God’s word transforms us. As we obey and love God, by walking in His ways, we shall be blessed. In God’s restoration of us, and our relationship with Him, our stories and our lives will have purpose and all the work of our hands will prosper. As we place our hurts and wounds into our Father’s hands, as He remakes and restores us, opens our hearts to live a life in His blessings, we are blessed and through the work or our hands and the sharing of all of who we are in Christ, we can prosper others.

Our hope comes from the knowing that as we turn to God His mercy exceeds His judgement against our sin as He restores us to a condition better than before. As God restores us and heals our stories, we walk in closer relationship to Him. In 1Peter 5:10 we are told, “after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”

Just like the physician in Wilder’s play it is through our stories of brokenness placed in God’s hand and His restoration of us that we can touch the lives of others who are hurting.

Once we are restored in Christ nothing will ever be the same again.

“Because you are important everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished, and nothing will ever be the same again.” Wm Paul Young

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Jackie Burns

I have authored and led weekly Sunday School programs and Womens Bible Studies, and hold a graduate degree in theology. After retiring from the secualar work place my focus has been on creating and sharing the Lord's word with others. I have both a podcast and blog page. My podcast is called Rough Places into Level Ground and links can be found on my blogpage, Seeking Level Ground.

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