Finding Restoration

I heard a quote the other day that said “Jesus isn’t in the business of fixing you, He’s in the business of making you  whole.” I really loved that quote because I never thought of Jesus not wanting to fix us but to restore us. I have always considered myself a work in progress – a hot mess that needs a major rehaul. To think that God does not see me that way, but instead sees the beauty in the finished work ahead, is very hopeful and reassuring.

What is the meaning of restoration? According to the dictionary, it means returning to a former position or condition: reinstatement. I think that is a perfect picture of what God’s plan has been all along. When God created us before time His plan was to create children to have a loving relationship with. Children who were complete in Him and through Him, just like everything else in creation. It was man’s desire to be separate from God to be their own god that created the tear in His design – but God in His sovereignty factored our free will into His plan.

God created us to live in a perfect world with pain, fear, death, punishment, and Satan. He never desired for us to live in this world of hatred and sorrow. We as humans with free will have chosen to part from God and try to make our way without Him, and that led to a partnership with evil in the Garden of Eden. This is not to say we as people are inherently evil or bad – God does not see things in black and white as we often do.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

Revelation 21:1

That is to say that we need to understand where we came from in order to understand what restoration is. How can we know where we are headed when we don’t know what we are looking for? Some people think that they have reached restoration because life seems pretty good with a minimum of troubles. Some people feel that they have already worked hard and so they should already be there. It’s never as simple as that.

Restoration, full restoration isn’t going to happen on this side of heaven. We are going to have to wait until we can move into our resurrected bodies and live in a new heaven and new earth for eternity with Jesus. That will be coming full circle back to God’s original design. Yet there is such a thing as achieving God’s healing into wholeness here in our earthly bodies. That does not mean we won’t experience pain, suffering, problems, and trials.

Restoration means coming into the fullness of who Christ is and allowing His work to bring us redemption from all of the sin, pain, brokenness, and death we have experienced in this life. It means God returning to us the things the enemy has stolen from us – identity in Christ, heavenly authority, position in God’s Kingdon, healing for our souls, freedom for our spirits. If we are looking for a perfect, sin-free, trouble-free life where all of our dreams our fulfilled, then we are missing the mark of God’s restoration.

Those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Isaiah 51:11

God is absolutely in the business of giving us good things. He loves to bless us and see us prosper in as many ways as possible, but sometimes that doesn’t work out as we think it should. Sometimes we are missing blessings right in front of us that are marks of God’s restoration in progress because we are looking for earthly things instead of spiritual things. When we take care of our spiritual health, the other things usually tend to line up with healing and wholeness.

I have waited a long time for restoration, and this year God gave me the word of “restoration”. I truly didn’t want to believe it, but I heard from Jesus that I was going to see a return of the things that the enemy has stolen from me. So I began looking for signs of earthly things being returned to me in ways I had been praying for but hadn’t seen yet. I wasn’t looking for the return of things even more valuable – such as the wholeness of accepting myself as the beautiful daughter of the God who created the heavens and the earth.

I wanted to see a growing ministry for myself and a prosperous business for my husband. I wanted to see my teen son come to Christ and have friends and family again. Those are all good things that I am still believing in, but I have realized that I was missing the very root of what restoration is all about – wholeness in my soul. A return of my identity to the way God created it before time began. A fuller relationship with the Father.

You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Psalm 16:11

These are the best things, and all the other healing is going to spring off of these things because they are the root of the good fruit that my life can produce. It has taken me such a long time to work towards wholeness. I am not even there yet; still at the beginning of understanding it, but it’s good to know what I am looking for now.

It starts with accepting who I am as a ritual abuse survivor. Not a broken mess who can’t get my life together and stop doing witchcraft. Not a woman who has failed her whole life because I couldn’t save myself from the abuse or stop it from happening to my children. Nor a person who has learned to cope by using anger and manipulation. None of that is who I am, yet it is a part of my feelings and experiences. It does not define me, but it is a part of my life. It has affected me, but it doesn’t have to shape me or control me.

What defines me is the loving God that created me, and the merciful Saviour that rescued me. Jesus offered His life in exchange for mine and that is what gives me value. God’s love poured out to make every fiber of my being and that is what defines me. The Holy Spirit lives within me as my friend, counselor, and mentor, and that is what shapes me.

Those who plant in tears

will harvest with shouts of joy.

They weep as they go to plant their seed,

but they sing as they return with the harvest.

Psalm 126:5-6

Friend, I know how it feels to struggle. I am right there with you. Just know that you are not in this alone. We are in this together – all of God’s children. It is not the persecution and trials that sanctify us, it is God’s love for us through them. He is with you, He will never forsake you, and you are never alone, because He is working every day to bring you redemption from the past and restoration to wholeness.

Instead of your shame you will receive a double portion, and instead of disgrace you will rejoice in your inheritance. And so you will inherit a double portion in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours.

Isaiah 61:7