More of God’s Presence: Week 4 – Restoration
Welcome to Week 4 of the series More of God’s Presence. We are walking through Psalm 23 shedding light on the intricate details of God’s Presence. I hope you will join us on this journey and embrace God’s Presence like never before! If you missed the other posts in this series, you can find them here:
Week 1 – I Shall Not Want
Week 2 – He Makes Me
Week 3 – Still Waters
Week 4: RESTORATION
I yearned for calmness, rest, and repair as if it would never come. If I could fix the situations in my life, then I would be able to move beyond this rugged road I was walking. With every step, there was more brokenness, pain, baggage, and dirt that was being stirred up only to linger in the footsteps of my path.
There are times when the broken places of life seem like they will never be repaired. Some situations that we endure leave lasting imprints, scars, and memories that we would rather forget.
I wanted to be free! I wanted to feel renewed and to rest in the sweet assurance of peace, but the anxiety that filled my soul grew stronger and seemed to cause destruction in my mind and the deepest places of my heart.
When you go through a trial or a season of many trials, your heart longs for repair. I know some may cringe when I say, God is able, but it’s true. He is the only restoration for a weary soul.
You cannot restore something that isn’t broken, damaged, or in need of repair. If life was perfect there would be no need for restoration.
As I rest in the restoration process, I am learning more about what restoration truly requires and why some of us receive it and others do not.
Restoration Requires:
1. Knowledge of my need.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
If I avoid my need for God, I will never be able to receive restoration. When life takes you to a place where you have no where else to turn, you quickly realize you have a need greater than anything this world offers. The need to be restored, repaired, and loved. God is the only thing you need.
2. Submission to the Shepherd.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
If I want peace in my life, I must be willing to submit to God’s power. If I avoid the idea or the concrete fact that God is all-powerful and all-knowing, I am forfeiting the peace that I desperately desire.
He leads me beside still waters.
I must follow where God leads me. There is no peace without God. When life is completely overwhelming, I must admit that I need more than what I am capable of producing. I do not bring peace to myself. God produces peace in my life by His power alone. If I begin to follow my own way, I will be frustrated, tired and feel very alone. The power of God’s peace is essential for restoration.
4. Acceptance of the restoration process.
When I realize that my broken, hurting places of life are capable of being repaired, my mind can hardly fathom the reality of it. When I begin to accept my need for God, and I submit to Him and His peace, I begin to experience the amazing restoration that can only be found in God’s presence.
The key to restoration is in the “He” of this passage. He – the Shepherd – Jesus – He restores. He gives restoration to the most broken, the most shattered, the most angry, the most hurt. He is able to restore your soul, but you must embrace the process.
Do you recognize your need for God?
Are you ready to submit to the Shepherd?
Are you eager to embrace God’s peace?
Are you willing to accept His restoration?
No matter what you have faced in this life, God is able to repair the most scarred, the most broken. He restores my soul!
What about you?
If you are longing for restoration, today is the day. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.
Love & Blessings,
Micah