A few weekends ago I was thick in the middle of cooking. Onions sizzling on the stove. Noodles draining in the sink and red pepper waiting to be chopped. If I had only kept the chopping action on the cutting board, things would have continued smoothly. But alas, I dared to slice the top of the red pepper against my thumb pressing a bit too hard and thus producing a long gash of blood, an unwelcome addition to the scene!
I quickly grabbed a towel to blot the cut and a new knife, determined to get the red pepper into the frying pan with the onions and the noodles rinsed.
Then I applied basic first aid to my injured thumb.
After spending much of the weekend in a band aid, the cut on my thumb began the healing process. The red disappearing. The skin becoming smooth again. Now there is just a tiny white mark as evidence that there was once a cut in my skin.
Restoration.
The healing of an injury.
Things returning to what they were.
We were born into a world with an injury so deep and persuasive that it's hard to fathom life without it. Through Christ we can be healed from our mortal wound. We can be set on the path of life. And one day we can be restored.
We can catch glimpses and moments of that restoration now. Jesus said, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." John 10:10.
But restoration in its full power; its far reaching effects; its time changing, age reversing, sin deleting, love winning triumph is still to come. We long for restoration to a world we cannot even dream of, but yet deeply desire. The memory of Eden is still in our DNA. The image of our Creator still stamped on every fiber of our being. And we are not alone.
Paul reveals in Romans, "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God." Romans 8:19, 20.
Can you imagine the trees, the mountains, the birds, the lions together in each heartbeat crying out for freedom from their bondage? Imagine their longings to be themselves what God made them to be.
The overwhelmingly good news is that restoration is coming. We can live each day in freedom, joy and hope, knowing our future is secure as long as we belong to Christ.
