Restoration

Teresa Poucher

  I had a dream about my old Bible that I love so much and had rebound.  I was devastated in my dream when I saw that my dog had chewed approximately one-fourth of the written Word.  The leather cover was intact, but I figured it was almost useless since about a fourth of it was gone.  I showed several people what happened to my treasure and how distraught I was, then I put it down. When I came back, I saw all the pages had been restored.

  I looked up how many verses are in the Bible, a total of 31,102.  Then I looked up how many verses are promises. Guess how many?  7,487.  It’s safe to say, close to a fourth.  

Our God is a God of restoration. In 2 Kings chapter 4, we find a woman and her husband, who were childless. Elisha tells the woman she will embrace a son. Sure enough, after a time, she had a son. Then sometime later, he fell ill and died. We don’t know how old the child was when he died, but after finally getting the son the woman had desired for so long, I can’t imagine how she then felt after losing him. The woman sought out the prophet, and God raised the child back to life. ‘Talk about restoration.

  Years later, Elisha warned the same woman that a famine was coming that would last seven years.  She left Israel and then returned after living seven years in the land of the Philistines.  This woman, who was not named, went to the king in distress to seek the land she previously owned.  

  Don’t you know, she showed up just as Gehazi was telling the king about Elisha’s restoring her son to life.  Not only did the king give the woman her land back, but the king also restored all the income from the fruit it produced while she was gone.  Wow, that’s restoration!  (2 Kings 8)

  In 1 Samuel chapter 30, we read about how David and his army had left Ziglag.  The Amalekites came and took their wives and children and burned their land.  It says they wept until they could weep no more.  They grieved so much, they spoke of stoning David.  Yet we see, he encouraged himself and sought the Lord.  David went with only a portion of his army.  Not only did he recover ALL, but he also took their flocks and herds.  Our God is a God of restoration.

We love to hear stories of restoration. Yet, to have something restored means we have lost something. What have you lost? God knows what it is to lose something. He lost his intimate fellowship with Adam and Eve in the garden. However, he had a plan to get it back. One can follow that plan through the Old Testament into the New. His life, death, burial, resurrection, and our infilling of the Holy Ghost. Now that is restoration.