Restoration

God
God loves to restore. He loves to make things new. He loves to make things whole. The reason we're made is to take delight in knowing Him! So not only does God want to bring out the best in you, He wants to restore you to a relationship with Him that He meant for us to have back when he first invented humans. (Possible now because of Jesus #aweh.)

Exodus
One of the best examples of restoration is God restoring His people from slavery into the Promised Land. They were other people's foot stools and then suddenly they were this whole new mighty nation by themselves. It's a good story, you can read (the first part of) it in Exodus, it is most definitely better than Twilight and maybe even Harry Potter. There's a lot of Drama, capital D. Like when the ground opens up and swallows some fools. And magic - like when someone puts a bronze snake on a pole and says if you just look at it, everything will be right with the world again. And romance- like when God speaks so intimately to Moses, a mere mortal man,  "Come up to me on the mountain and stay here."

So in this restoration story, the Israelites were supposed to take 11 days in the desert between Egypt (their slavery) and the land God promised them (aptly called "The Promised Land"). But they took forty years.

God had a will and a plan for them but they slowed it down.
They were so reluctant about being in the desert, that they wanted to go back to being slaves. Making bricks and building pyramids, for the rest of their miserable days. They complained about everything they could think of: how long, why, where's God, where's the water, this food is lame, we're going to DIE. Wow guys, a bit over-dramatic considering your God just split the sea open for you then used it to drown your enemies that you've been praying to be released from for the past however many generations. Seriously? All they had to do was walk through the wilderness and on the other side was a land flowing with milk and honey. They were hating on the manna (hello, food falling from the sky!!) but that wasn't even for forever. They had such bad attitudes that God let all of the generation from Egypt die out there, taking into the Promised Land only Israelites who had grown up in the desert.

But maybe even worse: after they were in the Promised Land, living the good life, the promised life, they "fondly remembered their days in Egpyt". What?? Are you out of your cotton-picking mind? After everything God has done for you and brought you to? You want to go back to slave life? You have a God who is exclusively yours, He's not just any God, He's THE God, He's literally promised you the earth, He's helped you win battle after battle, he's taken you from zero to hero - annnnd you'd rather think about the time you were working for some other foreign king who hated you and wouldn't let you mix with the natives.

So...
Here's the point I'm getting at...When it comes to attitude towards God's restorative ability: Christians = the Israelites.

God wants to bring change into our lives but we say 'no', we pull away, we make excuses. He only wants to bring good things to you but a little bit of time in the desert is too much. We have so little stick that it takes forever to get to where we need to go. And sometimes, that means we won't ever get there. We're so stubborn, we think we know everything but we don't even know what we want. We don't trust God to carry us through the in-between times.

What would happen if we closed our eyes and said yes? If we understood it would be difficult but worth it? If we jumped when God said, 'jump' - and then found ourselves flying.


It breaks me to think of how many Christians go back to their old lives after God has redeemed us.
"Whom the Son sets free is free indeed but whoever sins is a slave to sin."
God has taken you out of the past. You're not a slave to the things you used to be slave to. You're not of this world anymore.

And your inheritance doesn't rest in Egypt anymore - a legacy of slavery, mundane brick baking. Your inheritance is Jesus. Your reward is God Himself - a glorious, mighty, loving God. He wants a real relationship with you - the kind that make you feel like you're eating rainbows and pooping butterflies.
Jesus is our inheritance, our Promised Land. Your old life cannot be better than what He is.

Hope
He doesn't want you to DO anything: He wants you to open your heart to what He can do.
Forget about the lame stuff, look at Him. Just looking at Him will change you, that's how much restorative power is in Him. (Kind of like the snake on the pole thing.)
And when you feel him asking you to open your heart more: do it! Don't be like those lame Israelites.

Our ultimate restoration will be when we get to go to heaven. Man, I can't wait for that, especially the golden vocal cords for some sweet jam sessions. Aow!

So have hope! You were born to be made new.