Restoration

 January 20, 2022

One of my favorite TV channels is YouTube. I’ve learned how to be a better beekeeper, which attachments I can most use with my tractor, and use free follow-along workouts in the mornings. Recently, I found an interesting British series called “Home Restoration,” in which people restore stately homes that were often in danger of collapse, and even destined for demolition till someone with vision and means bought and began the work of restoration.

Almost without exception, these were people with vision and means (in their dilapidated state, these places could cost the equivalent of three or four million dollars). These individuals imagined the past glory of these mansions and wanted to see them live again. Part of the show features a historical architect and a historian who search out the history of these places, often going back three or four hundred years. 

Though expensive to buy and restore, the new owners were undaunted by the deeper issues they often encountered, dealing with decaying foundations and beams, unstable walls, and all the bureaucratic red tape of restoring an historical building.

This show has gotten me to thinking. Much as these people looked beneath the present decay to an imagined past magnificence and envisioned future glory, so God looked through my sinful deterioration, to see the original glory he created. He had the vision and the means to save and restore that which others couldn’t see, couldn’t fix; that which was destined for destruction.

Like these houses, God knew my history and gave me a future, made me once more a reflection of his glory and a home in which he himself would dwell. So Lord, in your image, make me a restorer of decrepit lives, and instrument of your redemption. Open my eyes to see beneath the decaying effects of sin to the magnificence of the soul you created and the glory of a life restored.