Factory refurbished or restored. I’ll admit, I’m pretty slow to buy an electronic doo-dad that is sold at a bargain price when it is listed as factory restored. Already it didn’t work for one person. What makes me believe that it will work the second time around? But that is based more on my lack of confidence in the restorer, who in all likelihood is responsible for the original problems.
God is in the restoration business. The good news is that he is not responsible for the original flawed product! We have messed up, and God is restoring. Once again, we are back at 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
I’ve talked about the problem of discomfort, and traps we fall into, in trying to seek comfort. Now I want to start looking at how we can cooperate with God’s grace and move toward wholeness, accepting God’s comfort. For comfort to truly overcome the brokenness that is the source of our discomfort, it must move us toward restoration.
Restoration is taking whatever is broken, and repairing the breach. In the Divine-human relationship, God has already taken the initiative. Jesus was born among us. He taught us. He died for us, and rose again. Now we must respond. If the breach is between two people, someone must follow God’s example and take the initiative. If the breach is with the environment, then perhaps applied wisdom in living is needed.
Sometimes, acceptance is needed. God accepts us as we are, even as he longs to restore us. How often do we expect someone else to pull it together, before we will deal with them? The problem is that they may be powerless to pull it together. Perhaps I need to pull it together enough to accept the other with all his problems.
Restoration is not easy. There is no magic pill. Dieters want a weight-loss pill that allows them to eat and not exercise. The patent-medicine snake-oil salesmen on radio and television are busy battling it out, claiming that their unique pill will help you lose weight, and the other is a sham. Heroin addicts shift their addiction from heroin to methadone rather than going cold turkey and quitting.
One day I was walking through the parking lot at the IGA (our local grocery store). A woman I didn’t know, came up to me and asked, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“How did you lose all that weight?”
I gave her the Reader’s Digest condensed version “I count calories, and I started walking every day.” (In fact, I was on my daily walk when I met her.)
She turned away without a comment, but also with a clear expression of disappointment. She wanted an easy answer. She wanted a magic pill.
There is no magic. But there is power and there is hope.
2 comments:
Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you for posting this. I can't even say how I happened across your site - but I have been struggling with weight loss for such a long time (a successful loss of 60 something pounds last year, and then gained most of it back - even with the weight loss I am still in the obese category). I was just telling my husband last night that I'm sick and tired of being this way. To which, he reminded me that I'm good on watching food, but the excercise (and my old eating habits coming back) is what I'm missing. To both ideas, I honestly didn't respond in my heart well. Truthfully I felt exactly like you have described this woman. It never ever even occured to me that this could even be tied to scripture in such a way. It really has given me a boost of determination. Again, thank you.
Congrats on the weight loss and thanks for the insight and greater lesson.
I, too, prefer my comfort zone. It's part of human nature, but a lot of what Jesus asks of us is to put aside our human nature and strive to be something better.
XT
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