Lately I’ve kind of been overwhelmed by this spirit of praise. For the past couple of days I have had it in my heart to just sing out loud, just fall into worship almost without thought, or logic, in absence of mind and just to be in the presence of God. I don’t know where it came from but I this word kept repeating in my mind, I kept dwelling on it: Restore. It felt like God was whispering to me restore over and over, and with this song in my heart and this deep joy that washed over me I thought God must want to restore me.
I’ve been so down and discouraged, this past season has felt like the fight of my life and I’m trying not to drown in responsibility and trying not to be dragged into the mud by a few things happening around me. I felt a great weight settle over me and unlike the past, this time it wasn’t quite going away.
Restore. God must want to restore me. I kept thinking about everything that’s happened, about all the preparation for Nepal and everything I need to get done in my time, as quickly as possible. It feels like there’s this mountain right in front of me that I have to climb and I keep sliding backwards, everything else in my life keeps pulling me down and it’s heavy, and it’s difficult to keep on this road but I want more than anything to keep on this path. Life keeps happening, not always in the best of ways, and I have to stop and turn around and help somebody else, or fix something else, I have to pick up one more thing, I toss more and more responsibility onto my load and it’s heavy, and at times on the path I’ve fallen quite hard. But I get back up. I won’t give up no matter how weak I get, no matter how heavy the load. I have a lot of things to remember about God and my story. There’s so much He’s brought me out of and a lot He’s walked me through, so much I could fill pages and pages. So it’s easy to believe that restore means God is going to give back everything I’ve lost; that everything will be like it was when it was easy. But after this word had circulated a few times in my head and I assumed I knew what it meant, God threw me a curve ball.
He said, “I don’t want to restore you.” Okay, ouch. So, I just get to keep on being miserable and heavy? Life just isn’t going to be what it was? I want restoration, you told me “restoration,” so what gives?
So I looked up the definition of restore, and it means to bring back, reinstate, return to former condition – and it sounded great. Restore the joy I once had? Absolutely. Reinstate a happy-go-lucky frame of mind? You bet. But then, it was like God touched my heart again. He said, “I don’t want to restore what you had. I want to give you something new.”
WOW. That hit me, hard. I said God, you want to keep me from something I had in the past, you don’t want it to be like it was, and He said that’s exactly right. Because you’re not who you used to be. You have been called to greater things and you’ve had it rough lately, yes, but how much of it have you given to Me? You’re not who you used to be. You, my child, are a new creation. I have BETTER things in store for you. Then He gave me another word. Replace. To restore means to bring back, but to replace means to take the place of. To provide a substitute. To exchange. Do you see what God is doing? He said no, of course I don’t want to restore you, you’ve been broken and you’ve faced fire in my name but my child, I want to EXCHANGE what you had for something BETTER. Listen to me, you are not who you used to be.
You know how when you’re little and nobody expects you to get a job and pay for your own house, food, car, and insurance? You’re never born with the expectation of knowing how to do your taxes, mow the lawn, or shop for groceries. Everyone would understand if you looked at a job application at two years old and had absolutely no idea what it meant. That’s all something you grow into. I feel like this moment, this revelation is something that God is saying it’s like that. You grow into things, and when you’re all grown and you’re an adult you don’t get your strength from the bottle anymore. People might look at you kind of strange if you still popped a binky in your mouth from time to time (I mean there’s no judgement from me, but you get the point). At a certain age you go from “you’re too young” to “this is adulthood.” Responsibility is something you grow into; and it’s not the same. Eventually we all walk away from things in our childhood that served us for a time but that we cannot hold onto forever.
So maybe God is telling you today, stop yearning for the “good old days,” don’t crave your past and how it used to be, because yes, everything is different now and it’s scary and adulthood comes with so many emotions, but I am the God of change. You may have had it good once but it can be better, too. Better still. I know He’s had to beat it into my head to have hope again. He does it gently, don’t worry. But He’s had to remind me over and over and over. Don’t give up, you made it this far. The fight is still in you as long as God is still living.
He wants to replace. To replace the lies with truth; to replace hopelessness with joy, agony with peace, longing with contentment. He doesn’t want you to stay in the past and He wants more for you than the happiness from your childhood. What He wants to give you is a deep rooted joy, much more mature, much more grounded and solid, a foundation to build your life on that’s never going to fail you and that will never go away, you’ll never grow out of it. Lighten your load. Give it all away, and give it as many times as it takes, God never runs out of patience. Trust me, I’ve tested that a thousand times. So don’t give up. You’re just growing into something bigger. Today’s verse kind of sums it all up nicely, so I’ll leave you with that: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.” – Luke 16:10
We don’t trust a toddler with the keys to your minivan and a card full of gas money. What you were given in the past was only what you could handle then, trust yourself to be able to handle more. Trust God to give you a measure of greatness you can handle now, in your Christian maturity. Don’t be afraid of the coming joy just because it looks a little different than you’d expected.
