Restoration

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, My great army, which I sent among you.”
—Joel 2:25

Several years ago I was in a resale shop in Chicago. Near the back of the store I saw what appeared to be a buffet. The shop was full of countless broken and forgotten items piled on top of one another. As I made my way through the shop, I caught a glimpse of an old buffet covered up in the corner of the room. It had been beaten, broken and forgotten. From the looks of things the owners of the store weren’t even attempting to move it anymore. There were no takers, no one interested in this old beat up piece. There was no back to it, the shelves were gone, the glass was covered, and across the top of it was a giant gash. Someone had attempted to attach some cabinets to it, making it look awful. It almost appeared that it was beyond repair. I inquired as to the price, and the owners were more than ready to get rid of it. I paid them the small price they asked for it, picked it up in a van, took it down into my basement and began to work on it. I tore off the top cabinets, ripped off the window coverings, and began surveying my new project. Though it had been beaten and abused, I could still see the beauty in it. I saw what it could become.

I grabbed my sandpaper and began working on it by hand. Each night after work I came home and went down to the basement, slowly, carefully applying my touch to every inch of that buffet. I sanded it clean, replaced the back, made new shelves, and got new hinges, handles and locks. I worked for months on it. But it was a labor of love. When it was finished, it was absolutely beautiful–perhaps even more beautiful than it had been when it was first made. I still have it, and it’s beautifully displayed in our home.

That’s what God does when He restores us. He sees us in our brokenness. We have been beat up by life, attempting to do our own thing, living life apart from God, but He takes us in our brokenness, just as we are, and puts His hand on our lives. He strips us down to what He wants, sands away the scars and clothes us in His righteousness. He restores us so that we are beautiful in His sight.

That’s what this passage is talking about. Sometime after the Jews had returned from their exile in Babylon to Israel, a national disaster came upon the region—an unheard of number of locusts came upon them, destroying their grain and wine crops (Joel 1:5, 7, 10, 12). It was a horrible blow to this fledgling community. But it was because the people had once again turned from God, and the locusts were the reminders of their need to repent. As our passage for today shows, if they were to repent, God would be quick to restore what the locusts had taken away.

God loves us too much to leave us in our sin. He sends reminders through His Word, preaching, books, friends, family, complete strangers, and through difficult situations, in order to get our attention. Each time we are reminded of our sin, we are faced with an opportunity—to continue in sin and invite further judgment, or to repent and seek restoration. God will judge, but I believe that He would rather restore. He wants to take our lives that have been decimated by sin and then recreate us to make us new. He strips us down of the sin, strife, and self, in order to refinish and paint us in the colors of His righteousness so that we might be put on display for the world to see His splendor.

Where are you at right now? Are you rebelling against God, feeling the stinging pain of His hand upon you as you carelessly go your own way? Or have you come to the end of yourself, ready to repent and be restored? I pray that it might be the latter. May God transform you as you come to Him in repentance and faith, ready to be restored and remade into the person He wants you to be. Amen.