We leave for our final destination(s) in Asia in a few short days. So close to our end, but still only the beginning of a new country, a new culture and new adventures waiting to consume us, teach and release us into the world with new insight and wonder. During this time we will be out of communication. No emails. No blogs.
Prayers please! I will also need the final balance of support, $985, to be fully raised by November 15. Thank you all for following my travels and experiences this year and seeing a little of God in the world through my eyes. As I travel for the month I just want to leave you with these thoughts inspired by my reading of Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell.
God loves to redeem things. I think it may be one His most favorite past times. To take something that seems so hopeless, so beyond repair and restore it. The word restore here is interesting because to restore implies that the restored is being brought back to something it once was. In our case it would be to restore us to who we were originally designed to be – who we were before sin.
Lets go back to God redeeming things. It is definitely one of my favorite characteristics of God. He takes something that seems hopeless and fills it with potential. Not perfection, but potential. The Bible is full of stories of God redeeming people. Moses, David, Paul, beggars, prostitutes… the list goes on. His promise is to continue this pattern in the lives of people and things still today. And, He is saving the best for last in promising to redeem the entire world by restoring it to its’ original design. Everything will regain its’ full potential.
Restored. Redeemed.
What I love is the hope those promises deliver. Nothing – no one – is too far gone for God to redeem. I’ve heard testimonies that I could hardly believe, except that were coming from a persons’ mouth who used to be one way, but now they are not.
Amazing.
A life full of death, destruction, loss, despair, abuse… redeemed. The new one looks nothing like the old because now there is love, peace, life, hope… potential.
Jesus is the first part of our story and the last, but in the end the last battle will be fought and the earth and His people will be restored once and for all. Hallelujah.
Until then, where do we see the need for restoration in our lives? In the world around us? Will we allow God to work in us to redeem the ransacked places of our souls? Of our lands? Will we believe in the hope He gives us to cling to and live in light of the potential He has filled us with?
God makes light from dark, form from void and people from dust, all with a word.
One word.
That is all it takes for God to take what was and turn it into what is. It is for us to believe in what will be.
