Revival and Restoration - Trusting God's Plan for Our Story

Here we are in May, the fullness of spring, the fullness of a calendar, and the anticipation of summer. The season of waiting and anticipating the slowness of summer but we are caught in the Maycember of it all so we are in the messy, refining season of the “not yet”. We get to be fully present in this season of expectation after a long winter. The hard reality of our faith walk is that we are not guaranteed a life free from suffering. In fact, He gives us a pretty good spoiler alert that we will go through suffering but what he does promise us, is that He is with us, He loves us, He’s Good, so He restores us. If you are coming out of a hard winter, metaphorically and literally, restoration and revival are here.

Revival and Restoration Begin with Self-Awareness

I think it’s fair to say that most of us desire restoration. I personally desire a restoration of my kitchen and to get me one of those farmhouse sinks but for today, lets take restoration a little deeper. We desire restoration when we desire that closeness with God, to be more like Him, to feel more like our authentic, true self that He created in His image. Boldly restored to who He created us to be. The pieces that we feel we have broken along the way, the pieces we don’t love about ourselves, the parts of our story we want to erase, God desires to restore, in fact, God promises to restore all of it. But it has to start with self-awareness. We can’t deny that these hard things exist and we can’t deny that these hard things are outside of His reach and that starts by being honest about them.

We see in 2 Corinthians, Paul and Timothy write to the church in Corinth, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” and then a little later,

“Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace and the God of love and peace will be with you" (2 Corinthians 13:5, 11).

So much of our walk toward wholeness and health is about developing a sense of self-awareness. It’s a beautiful but oh-so-uncomfortable thing as we bring things to light that we have kept in the shadows. Our road toward self-awareness can tempt us to shame. As we start to look inward, we can be tempted to stay inward. But please hear me, self-awareness should never lead us to shame but rather, it should lead us to restoration.  Several years ago I started adding a rhythm to my day that became an invitation every morning towards self-awareness but instead of looking inward and staying inward, I took my journey of self-awareness upward with a Scripture-based prayer. But lest you think it is because I just wanted to begin my journey towards self-awareness as a spiritual practice unprompted because I’m just that holy-  think again.

Out of the Darkness, Into the Light

My favorite bedtime routine, as most people are following a proper skin-care routine, is to replay social interactions I had that day. As I go through all of the weird things I said and did, there is all kinds of unproductive bargaining being made. God if you restore me, I’ll become a wallflower, I’ll take Benadryl before every dinner, I’ll take a vow of silence! I was living in the shadows of shame. Shame will be the biggest roadblock to true transformation. Here’s why- shame lies to us and tells us we need to keep things in the shadows because if we brought those parts of our story, those parts of ourselves that we aren’t proud of, that we don’t like- it would make us unloveable. Shame lies to us and says we aren’t worthy of mercy, we aren’t worthy of love and forgiveness, and we aren’t worthy of restoration. But friends, God’s whole story says differently. He says that we are because we are His. He has called us by name. If we start to bring those parts of our story to light, light touches, fear loses its power- shame loses its power because God desires for us to be in the light with him…. All of us.. All parts of our story. Nothing belongs in the dark when we are His.

Revival and restoration do not happen in the dark. Last year, God spoke a Word over my year and it was “revival”. Now, I didn’t know what that meant but this past year has been a year of grief and loss and ache. I was crying out to the Lord begging Him to explain Himself and I would like a refund on my “revival” please and thank you. And so clearly, I heard Him whisper, “Daughter, things have to die in order for there to be a revival.”

Can I speak to the manager? Is there a comment box that the Holy Spirit takes to God on our behalf?

I pushed past the disappointment and reached into Hope. Things have to die in order for there to be a revival. God knew what needed to die in order for there to be a revival.

Is there still grief? Yes. But is there gratitude for His faithfulness and presence within that grief? Yes. There is space for both. Is there still hurt? Deeper than you know. But revival means there is hope within the hurt. We worship too creative of a God to have to choose between emotions such as these.

All Things New

Revival means we can be honest with the wrestling and the things that are rotting, but we hold hope within it all that He makes all things new. Let’s look at John 15: 1-8.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

If we don’t believe in the revival, in the truth that he prunes what needs to be pruned so that we can bear more fruit, experience His joy, experience His love, be made into His disciples so that we can bring glory to Him- we will wither away. I can look outside of my kitchen window and see the explosion of color that Spring brings. I know that my front yard with the azaleas and dogwoods are a sweet love note from God that He brings forth blooms after the winter… but the blooms are even more magnificent if I’ve done my winter pruning. The pruning makes way for more fruit… a bigger and better revival. Unless we abide in His love, the fruit we get will not be as sweet. It’ll be that weird freeze-dried fruit that doesn’t sustain. It’s not real.  Without love, without abiding and chasing after HIS love, we are a clanging cymbal so we can bang around all we want with just actions, or to-do lists to be a better person, to post about our highlights as a Christian, or run around like a bunch of Marthas volunteering for everything with a SignUp Genius, and just stay on the surface without embracing the pruning that comes from abiding in His word, His love, being with Him- when we align with Him and see what a life with Him is truly like, we have to open ourselves up to this pruning, which sometimes feels more like bushwhacking, these things from our shadow side that need to die in order for Him to revive us and for us to see real fruit.

Hope for Revival and Restoration

I’m your walking (sometimes limping) hope right here. Is everything fixed? Not by a long shot BUT I'm seeing fruit and revival in every area where I didn't think it was possible. The real fruit that I ultimately longed for when I was near to God is happening and is so much better than my worldly desires and worldly view of what fruit should look like. And the hope I feel when I’m abiding in Him makes so other sense except that it is coming all from the Divine.

We have all this evidence that He desires to restore us. It’s who He is. So we can walk in active openness to receive and daily pursue transformation.  True restoration can come when we trust His plan for our story, even the hard parts of whatever it is we have been walking through this year. We can move through each struggle with a hope-filled confidence that is a part of our restoration so we can start to approach it with open hands and open hearts and dare I say some curiosity for how God will use all of it to restore us, never to shame us or destroy us. When we know that restoration is waiting for us on the other side of our struggle, we can weather these hard seasons with patience and peace and choose hope with our shoulders back and head to the heavens.

Restoration is never about denying the hard things exist or that winter was rough. It’s about bringing them to light and trusting God to renew and restore the broken things. Friend, if you have weathered a winter that left you feeling weary, please remember that there is nothing, not one part of your suffering, or your story that He cannot redeem, that He can’t restore, that He can’t make beautiful.