Posted 20 January 2005
"RESTORED"
Awhile back I stood with sweaty palms and a racing heart in front of a crowd at
annual conference to share a brief testimonial about my life. I mentioned that my
father was a minister, that I was a troublemaker, and that my baby sister died when
I was ten years old. Anyone that knows my story is well aware that the shape of my
life has little to do with being in church every Sunday since the moment I was born
or that I have an unquenchable thirst for causing drama. What has shaped the person
I have been and the man I am today was the death of my sister. Losing her sent me
down a path of darkness - one that I chose to walk alone. Until recently I did not
understand the reasons behind many of the poor decisions I had made. In my relatively short life I have hurt many people, myself included, I have been reckless, and I did not often have God in my heart. I had a negative impact on the world. Contemporary Christian artist Jeremy Camp has a song entitled “Restored” that can give people struggling with a history of malevolence a new hope for their future.
My heart is being mended by your touch.
And I hear it – Your voice that’s shown my purpose in this world.
You have restored me from my feeble and broken soul.
You have restored me.
Camp describes the song as a testament of coming from the most faith shaking time of his life to having seen the Lord restore him in ways that exceeded his every desire. The song is based on a scripture in the book of psalms – 23:1-4 which tells us “The Lord is my Shepard; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He RESTORES my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” What we have to understand is that God will always mend our soul and give us new hearts – there will never be a time when God says he will not fix us, but it requires a little effort on our part. Only if we openly cry out to him, only if we truly let him into our lives, only if we truly prepare ourselves for change will we see ourselves restored. I have a Catholic friend who often comments on his church’s “Get out of hell free” policy, also known as confession. My friend’s idea of grace is not how God expects us to come before him to be restored (knowing full well that we plan on giving in to the darkness again). In order to be restored we must truly shift our priorities from those of this world - money, popularity, material possessions, sex without relationship; to those of Heaven – grace, love, community, humility, devotion. It’s not fair to ask God to give us a new heart all the time if we are in fact tied to sinful behavior. In terms of a more secular example - imagine if hospitals starting giving out donated hearts to chain smokers every time one of their hearts was about to fail, even if that meant a new heart every couple months. Eventually there would be no hearts to help anyone. But there is a hole in this metaphor - if God were constantly restoring us no one else would lose anything, for God time and effort are of no concern; however we, those in need of restoration, would still be cheating ourselves out of a truly life changing experience. We would be trivializing God’s attempts at taking us back to the people he intended us to become, never truly making a change. In doing so, would you not be more likely to fall back to your darker habits? We must humble ourselves on our knees in prayer and ask that God would restore us, to take our hearts back to the eager children we once were, unaffected by pain, bitterness, temptation, and worry. For me it happened in the middle of a hurricane, nearly 2000 miles away and two years after I had shared my testimony with the annual conference. I let go of all of the pain and frustration of the last 13 years. I cried out to God to restore me, to help me remedy the hurt I had caused, and push me forward into the future as a man walking by faith. Sometimes it just takes time to purge yourself of the negativity in your life. But take comfort in the fact that God will be ready the moment you are, he is anxious and waiting to help you. I encourage you, as someone who has seen just how dark it can get, to come to God for restoration sooner rather than later - the only person you’ll hurt by waiting is yourself.
Peace,
Ben Kendrick