Restoration
for God Who protects and rescues us are You; for God, the gracious and compassionate King, are You. Siddur, Maariv for Weekdays, Shema and Its Blessings, p. 291.
Protects and Rescues – “Being obedient does not require understanding God’s reasoning.”[1]
Yes, that’s so true. Frankly, I don’t understand God at all. I don’t understand how His people can offer this kind of prayer for protection and rescue and still be the victims of evil circumstances, evil men, evil plans and everything else that seems to conspire against doing right in the world. Frankly, I don’t know how restoration can possibly work.
Let’s take the example of a cancer victim.
The understandable longing is for restored normalcy—a return to life before the illness or the diagnosis. But there is no going back. Once we are confronted with our mortality and the vulnerability of human life, we are forever changed. Even in the instances where disease is eradicated, the only ‘normal’ that can be attained is what is referred to as a ‘new normal’—a normal that accounts for the limitations wrought by illness or disability but is nevertheless full of new possibilities. And it is in the midst of this new normal that healing can begin. When we are no longer gripped by the desire to go back to who we once were, we are willing to explore who we are becoming and, perhaps, who we were intended to be in the first place.[2]
Hammer is right. Whatever “restore” means, it doesn’t mean going back to before. In fact, even those reminders of what life used to be like can be so painful that they freeze us with regret and remorse. Restore can’t mean return.
Maybe we need to listen to Terry and Sharon Hargrave.
“Love informs our identity while trustworthiness forms our sense of safety.”[3]
“When a parent sacrifices what he or she needs in order to meet the needs of the child, the child learns he or she is more important and dear to the parents than even the parents’ lives. This infuses the child with an identity that speaks not only to the importance but also to the worth in which he or she is held in relationship.”[4]
Maybe “restore” is more about creating a new place of safety instead of return to what has now been lost. What if that’s what God is doing? What if He isn’t trying to take us back to the idyllic past (that sentimental enrichment of things as we desired them to be) but rather pushing us to a new safe place, a place that feels very uncomfortable now because it doesn’t seem like return. It doesn’t seem like return because it isn’t. But we play tricks on ourselves by thinking that it should be. Restoration can never be return “because the wounds of past identity are inconsolable.”[5]
It is much easier for us to remain mired in the identity of the past than to let this restorative love into our perceptions of ourselves. . . But in the end analysis, we have to be involved in the process ourselves to decide whether or not we will choose to believe and restore our identity to the path of life and peace.[6]
Are we willing to accept—embrace—restoration, or do we just want to go back before all the trouble started? Are we mired in the hope of return or ready to welcome the discomfort of another way? Does a prayer for protection and rescue mean repair and reinstatement? If it does, hasn’t God spectacularly failed?
Topical Index: rescue, restore, protect, return, safety, Siddur, Maariv, p. 291.
[1] Joseph Frankovic, The Kingdom of Heaven (HaKesher, Inc., 1998), p. 34.
[2] Miyoung Yoon Hammer, Fuller Magazine, Issue #6, 2016, p. 33.
[3] Terry and Sharon Hargrave, “Restoring Identity” in Fuller Magazine, Issue #6, 2016, p. 40.
[4] Ibid., p. 41.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., p. 43.
Living in Santa Rosa after the worst firestorm in California history I am a witness and participant to the likely long slow and arduous process of restoration. This is not however the first trajedy I have seen. I have seen many having grown up in trauma and loss. This is not about my story (although it can be found by that name on my blog worksofwordsdotcom password; jahh) The point is, in my experiance YHVH actually prepares us who follow him for what is to come or uses us to help others in the midst of truble. Truble, loss and suffering are his gratest tutors. Yeshua “although the very son…learned obidienace (=to listen attentively ) Through the things he suffered.” We expect a different course of study? However to keep in line with the conversation and not run off into the daisies, I like the words of my favorite theologian Bob Dylan who propheticly sings on his album “love & theft” in the song “making my last go round” “…”Ill baptize you with fire so you can sin no more, I’ll establish my rule through civil war”. He also suggests in lyrics elswhere that ” you can come back, but you can not come back all the way” He implies and I agree, restoration is not return, it is more of reconciliation and renewal. At least that’s my personal experiance as one having been baptized with fire.
Preach it, brother!
Agreed.
Restoration for the living is not about fixing a smashed inanimate dead thing to a former likeness and function, to leave it still dead and unresponsive.
If indeed by chance you were a picture perfect, functional and beautiful object before your losses in your own estimations.Reality impinges; eventually, if you are fortunate. So it would be truthful to allow ourselves to discover the incompleteness of that perception & the impossibility of naming a return to that previous state as being Restored. Restored is again but again from the place/time where you start ( the race) again. To be in the race you must recognise you were dead and are now alive.
Even the miracles did not make the blind man 20 years younger or take him back to the womb when born blind to ‘redo time’ & the dead came back to life from a state where no time had gone by from their perspective. Restoration is related to time for us in the body. Time is related to movement in the physical realm. And it all goes forward
To be “restored” is relational to being hooked into the Way of Heaven where the blueprint comes from.. The Spirit opening up life Again. Today is the day of restoration/salvation.
Seems we are restored not entirely for our own sense of healing to be experienced as an individual but more for the corporate sense as we are enabled to allow for the myriad of possibilities that are part of the Greater Plan of Restoration and Redemption. Each person that accepts the restoration lights up as a pixel on a screen and the picture gets filled in. And as pixels we respond and create all manners of light in the spectrum until we learn how to be white with all the colours. Bringing the Gospel message.
That is when trust in Him overcomes fear & the healing is experienced and actual Love is released out from us. Have had that freedom a couple of times..
Seems if we have a chance to ponder the Actions of restoration, they have reverberations that encompass growing into the learning to breathe for others too in our prayers and other actions, instead of our personal insecurity and need. Restoration seems to be micro scaled in targeting an individual but like most things El does they have enormous potential to multiply abundantly into the macro scale. The effects that emanate from us as light poured out where death once lived.
Thank Him
Be blessed
FJ
Preach it, brother!
Many are familiar with the story of Sheryl Sandberg, a wealthy powerful young woman who was Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer and discovers in the midst of the trappings of privilege she is not COO of life. She tragically loses her equally successful husband to a sudden and untimely death. In her grief and sudden loss of control she asks a friend for guidance. He famously tells her, “Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the sh*t out of Option B.” Good advise. Been there, done that. After failing Option B,C,D,E…I am now kicking my way through Option J.
Michael, when things get so bad you find yourself finding tragic humor in it all, remind yourself that in that place, you are probably saner than anyone around you and that finding a way to laugh at it to keep from crying is the only sane response possible. I am laughing with you. Til the tears roll down our faces.
This planet is completely messed up, man. See? And you thought it was you!
Laurita, Yes, I have learned that humor, especially gallows humor, is effective in most situations. People find it easier to laugh with you or at you, than to cry with you or for you. Humor, I have recently discovered is more potent after you have died (in Messiah). The pains of life and the struggles to survive self have already taken their toll, leaving one with a clarity of reality that transcends comic relief. But I know that Yeshua can taste the salt in the tears that stream from our faces and I am comforted beyond measure and over and above hope. Thanks sister. Nice to commiserate with cracked comrades.
“You have to kick at the darkness till it bleeds day light”. Bruce Cockburn from “Dancing in the Devils Jaws” 1971.
oops “Dancing in the Dragons Jaws” Beautiful acoustic album…
Man fixes broken things, or at least tries to.
God restores them to full renewal.
I tried, and failed, numerous times to fix and overcome my addictions.
God completely restored me to never wanting to do them again.
But much, much more, He put into me a new nature — His! (See 2 Pet 1:2-4)
Maybe God is not fully understandable.
But His ways are definitely superior to ours!
ONCE HAVING EXPERIENCED THE SHOCK OF THE REALITIES OF THE KINGDOM OF DARKNESS WITHIN US AND THE KINGDOM OF DARKNESS IN THIS WORLD, IT SEEMS WE CAN NO LONGER KNOW THE GUILTLESS INNOCENCE WE THOUGHT WE ONCE HAD OR ANY REALISTIC HOPE FOR THE GUILTLESS INNOCENCE WE THOUGHT MIGHT YET BE.
We may be able to be made innocent again and we may be able to be healed, but we will never not be guilty and we will never not have scars. Being declared forgiven and being declared innocent may be little more than a legal condition, with some psychological and emotional benefits, but our memories and emotions make it all a different matter, don’t they?
YHVH may cleanse our CONSCIENCE of sin, but our CONSCIOUSNESS may never be free of it all. It seems we must rid of ourselves, not only of the illusions we have had of the false promises of sin, our own lofty evaluations of our own self-righteousness, and the false judgments that have accompanied both, whether for good or for bad, but also the dreamy expectations that we will ever have equality with God or a status in life that is free from the history of all our spots and blemishes. And we may forgive others of their iniquities against us and against those whom we have loved, but those iniquities and injustices may forever be stored in our memories, even if only in the subconsciousness of our minds, ever leaking into and having sway over our present state.
So, yes, it seems that His restoration is a restoration of life, but that does not necessarily include an erasing of the consciousness of the experiences of sin, pain, and death of the past. The infatuation and “puppy dog love” of life we thought we had, were or are entitled to, and cannot seem to regain, may only ever have been an illusion anyways, and not the true reality of life that He has ever wanted us to know. It doesn’t mean that it can’t be good or even excellent, it’s just that the idealistic emotional, relational, and situational perfectionism we have dreamed about may never been His plan in the first place. Maybe it’s true, you can only really appreciate the greatness of the mountain tops of the kingdom of heaven when you have been through and can then look down upon the depths of the valleys of the kingdom of darkness.
Disillusionment is a dark and painful grief, but the acceptance and knowing of His sovereign grace is the sunshine of glory from above.
Being disillusioned ? from worksofwords.com
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A life in illusion is not life,
Illusion is a lie.
A life fabricated in our minds,
Founded on fantasy,
Is not life, it is a lie.
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Who determines what is true for you?
Your mind,
Your heart,
Your conscience,
Your culture,
Your god?
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Being dis-illusioned is good!
Who wants to live a lie;
A lie fabricated by ones mind,
Or someone else’s opinion,
Or ones fears?
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Who wants reality; really?.
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Being dis-illusioned is good,
Disillusionment is real,
It’s painful to ones pride.
Being real hurts our pride;
Our self-serving ideas can become god’s.
Our pride must be crucified!
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Someone said;
“You worship what your fear”!
We bow down and worship, conforming our perceptions to the demands of what we fear.
We serve what we fear!
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Someone said;
“People judge themselves by their intentions and others by their actions”.
We all believe in our intentions .
We all believe our intentions are good and noble, and true,
But are they really?
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Who’s the judge?
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You?
Another?
Ones culture?
Your ideas?
The law of the land?
The one true God?
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Truth will out,
Reality is truth,
God is truth!
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Being dis-illusion-ed is good it brings us into reality!
Reality is good! But it hurts ones pride!
Our pride must be crucified!
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Realty is humbling.
Reality is living on the cross of Christ!
The cross of Christ is our place of humility,
The cross of Christ is our bridge into reality.
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Live in reality.
Fear God alone!
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Truth, grace and mercy are real;
They are found at the Cross of Christ
When we are willing to let our pride be crucified,
Becoming disillusioned.
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© wmp 160902
Disillusionment, the dissing of an illusion.
Misty Edwards, a friend of my son’s and daughter’s-in-law and with whom they have led worship, wrote a song entitled, “Lovesick”, and in it she sings,
“I am lovesick, for my Beloved
My Beloved and my Friend
Only you can satisfy
Try as I may to chase another Lover,
I find there is, there is no other
For only you can satisfy
And happy am I, to live a hungry life
Blessed am I, to thirst
Disillusionment, it is my gift within
I am blessed, I am blessed among men!”
We long for this great restoration in relationship with Him and all creation. It makes us hunger and thirst, and the disillusionment is meant to be a gift that sets us free from that which can never satisfy, that we might diligently seek and find Him, for this is the faith that pleases Him, to believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
YHVH may cleanse our CONSCIENCE of sin, but our CONSCIOUSNESS may never be free of it all.
What true words. I was stuck with guilt for many years. In fact every time I look back on my life I find things I regret and wish I could set them straight. There is just no way we can do that. So I learnt to accept what the prophets said. God takes our sins and binds them away and no man can open. Yet we ourselves cannot forget.
And as Mark said we learn to accept and keep ourselves preoccupied (own words) till we no longer feel those pangs.
No other man can use our past against us, only we can. God does not desire that from us he desires repentance so yes the more we regret is maybe the only way we can truly feel remorse. But then God does not permit us to forget he places others in our paths whom we can help and assist to prevent them from falling in the same trap.
And from the sluggish pit of regrets it is only God that reaches out and lifts us up so that we can find solid ground again. Love that conquers all not love that pushes all into our faces.
But yes grow from our mistakes and burdens and a new resurrected life awaits us. Fail to learn and our mistakes will forever keep us from truly being.
As for the physical concerns and ailments. Even those force us to turn the page over…
Agree, it’s not about going back to Eden but a ‘wake-up call’ to the new provision Christ has provided in “a city, heavenly Jerusalem”.