“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
The crawling locust,
The consuming locust,
And the chewing locust,
My great army which I sent among you.
You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
And praise the name of the Lord your God,
Who has dealt wondrously with you;
And My people shall never be put to shame. (Joel 2:25-26).
What exactly does restoration mean?
When God promises that He will restore us, it simply means that he will give us back much more than what we lost. He promises us that our latter days will be greater than our original condition. Every single aspect of your life will be re-established. When God restores, He renews, rejuvenates, refreshes and makes it new. Most importantly, He takes away the shame that had previously existed.
How Does God restore?
God knew from the beginning of time that at various points our souls would get weary. So through the Holy Spirit He ensured that we would always be encouraged through His Word, the Bible. Every single time that His Children, the Israelites, underwent devastation, He gave them a word of restoration. The best example of His restoration of mankind occurs when He sent His only begotten Son (John 3:16) to die for our sins and through His resurrection, we were restored back to Him.
The 1st step for His restoration occurs when we get born again through confession of our sins and acknowledgement of Jesus as the Lord and Saviour who died and rose again in order to set us free from our sins. He tells us in vs. 17 that Jesus came to save the world, not to condemn it. Therefore, we see that in Christ there is salvation of which restoration is a part of.
If we allow God to lead us, He promises to restore us. Psalms 23:1-3 best tells explains this when it says, “The Lord is my shepherd; 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 wants to be in charge of every single aspects of our lives, no matter how small the detail may seem to us. After all, He knows the number of hair of each and every single one of our heads (Luke 12:7). That is how precious we are to Him.
In conclusion
Are you lost, hopeless, and tired? Given up with life? God is waiting for you to ask Him then trust Him for restoration. He is in the business of restoring broken people. Look to Him for restoration in our life, and if you seek Him long enough, you shall most certainly find Him. And He will begin to do great things in your life.
He is waiting for us to surrender everything to Him so that he can take the ashes and turn them into beauty (Isaiah 61:3). After all, His Word in Psalms 51:17 says that “The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.” So we have to stop trying to figure everything out and just rest in knowing that He has got it all under control
I will close with the Word for Jeremiah 29:11-13 that is full of His promises:
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
