I Am Restored
Over the past year, we have lost so much. We have lost loved ones. Some have lost jobs. Others have had their health impacted, or lost their homes. In these and so many other ways, we have had our lives upended in the last year. And some healthcare experts are even warning that we are experiencing mass trauma. As the people of God, we need to be assured and let others know that there is hope and there is restoration available in God. Restoration is what Jeremiah was seeking from God for His people after Judah’s fall and ruin. They had lost so much, but in Lamentations 5, Jeremiah prayed for God to return them to Him and to restore them. May God bless you to draw closer to Him and may He restore you in the full power of His love.
Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach. (Lam. 5:1) Following the Babylonian invasion and their subsequent captivity, the people of God were left in a sad state of affairs. They were a reproach (disgrace) to themselves and all those who encountered them. Neither those who were taken into captivity nor those who were left in Judah were able to escape God’s punishment. This prayer by the prophet Jeremiah on behalf of God’s people, begins by asking God to look upon the ruin of His people and to be moved, because of His love, to remedy their disgrace. Your restoration begins when you seek God and ask Him in His great love and mercy to act on your behalf.
Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens. We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows. We have drunken our water for money; our wood is sold unto us. Our necks are under persecution: we labour, and have no rest... The joy of our heart is ceased; our dance is turned into mourning. The crown is fallen from our head: woe unto us, that we have sinned! For this our heart is faint; for these things our eyes are dim. Because of the mountain of Zion, which is desolate, the foxes walk upon it (Lam. 5:2-18) Jeremiah begins recounting all of the curses Judah was experiencing. Everything that they had was taken from them. All the benefits of living in the Promised Land and the grace of God were stripped away. They had been reduced to despair, desperation and servitude. They were like orphans and widows, considered the most vulnerable part of society, without protection or control over the means to provide and sustain themselves. Their joy had turned to mourning and they were no longer in God’s favor. The mountain of Zion, where the temple was, was so deserted that foxes walked around openly and unafraid. Judah’s ruin and their fall from grace was complete. Jeremiah’s prayer acknowledged that their woe (distress) was due to their sin. Your restoration requires confession that your circumstance and your separation from grace is due to sin.
You, LORD, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation. Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long? Restore us to yourself, LORD, that we may return; renew our days as of old unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure. (Lam. 5:19-22) Jeremiah acknowledged God’s sovereignty and His authority to bring calamity to Judah. But He asked God a most important question…how long would God continue His wrath upon His people. How many of us have asked the very same question while suffering the pain of our circumstance…How long God? Jeremiah asked the question, but he also provides us with the answer. We must return to God and we must ask Him to restore us back to relationship with Him. God’s greatest desire is for us to return to Him and He will restore us into a relationship that isn’t based on wrath, but rooted in His deep and steadfast love for us.
Jeremiah prayed for the restoration of Judah back to their former place and condition, and away from the trauma they were experiencing under Babylonian rule. Trauma negatively reorients your world and your perception of how you fit into that world. It leads to feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. Even as we emerge from the trauma of this pandemic, we need to be connected to God now more than ever. We need to get closer to God for the restoration that can only be found in Him. We need Him to restore our joy, our peace, the health of our mind, body and spirit, and we need Him to restore our hope! Jeremiah knew that only God could restore what His people so desperately needed. Do you need restoration in your life? Well, there’s good news because the same God is available to us too... And He still has the power to restore what you lost!
Listen as Zacardi Cortez sings “You don’t know”
Blessings,
Rev. Glenn
