Restoration:

Definitions: “To put or to bring back to an earlier or original state”

Fascinating, right? So if we are talking about personal restoration, the definition would suggest that we are being put back to “an earlier or original state.” Does this mean our goal is to get back to the garden? Back to God’s original design for our life? Back to a childlike faith and approach to life?

The biblical meaning of the word “restoration” is to receive back more than has been lost to the point where the final state is greater than the original condition. The main point is that someone or something is improved beyond measure.

I think it’s really important that we know what we’re shooting for when we seek restoration. And if it is even in the ballpark of the biblical definition, then we need to mobilize the troops. We need to access all the power available to us in order to see this kind of change manifest in our life. I want to reassure you that if you are feeling in over your head, you’re right, you are. We are supposed to automatically acknowledge our powerlessness to affect this kind of change and yield to a power greater than ourselves. And the good news is that is exactly what our higher power excels at. He excels at taking our simple willingness and multiplying that into massive life restoration.

Our stories

Now that I have overwhelmed you completely with the task at hand, I want to add another element to this beautiful process. But I want to introduce another element in the process of restoration that will add incredible depth and reality to our efforts.

I have heard it said that the key to personal and communal restoration is to re-story ourselves. Hang with me now! Very often the thing that holds us back from living the lives we were designed to live is the self-limiting, self-defeating stories that we tell ourselves. We tell ourselves unreal stories about life in general and about ourselves in specific. These stories might be narratives that we inherited from parents or culture and have not critically examined for years. They also might be stories that we have adopted to protect ourselves from the stark and threatening reality of our lives.

This is graphically displayed in the lives of those who struggle with addiction and carry damaging narratives to justify behaviors they know are killing them and others. But it may also be inaccurate views of life and others that makes some of us self protective and fearful when there is no threat.  These stories that we carry can result in an arterial bleed or a slow steady loss of life force. Regardless of the rate of blood loss, you’re still bleeding out.

So I’d like all of us to think together about what stories we carry that need to be restoried….restored. And the other aspect of what I’d like to discuss this week is what do those stories that we carry cost us? Probably not fun but so so necessary!

Jon