by Kyle Isenhower
Like most people, I love shiny and new things. I’m always reading up about the newest gadgets and technology, dreaming of when I can make it mine. When it comes to furniture, though, my favorite pieces aren’t those that are new, polished, or untouched. I would much rather own a sturdy piece that was once great, but that has lost some its polish over the years from use. There is something inside me longs to reclaim and restore.
I think that God has built this in to each of us from the beginning. We were all made for the Garden of Eden, and since the fall, we all have a longing to not just create new things, but to reclaim and restore everything back to the way it was intended. As we’ve studied the Old Testament, I got the sense that the same narrative was being played over and over again. God creates something that is perfect and right, and his people pervert, maim, and destroy it.
When God sent Jesus down to Earth two thousand years ago, it was the ultimate act of redeeming. We’ve messed up what was once pure and ideal over and again. Because Jesus came, all of that will one day be restored. Because Jesus came, our lives have been redeemed from death into the life intended for us since the Garden.
“Break forth together into singing;
you wasted places of Jerusalem,
for the Lord has comforted his people;
he has redeemed Jerusalem.”