Henry Cloud & John Townsend - Life JourneySample

The Big Picture of Reconciliation

In the process of helping people grow, we often forget the big picture of what God is doing in the human race. We get caught up in the particulars of helping someone restore his or her emotional or spiritual health, heal a hurting marriage or successfully navigate life, and we lose sight of the bigger picture.

But there really is a big picture. It is the story of God, his lost creation and his work to restore that creation to himself. This big picture is very important as we think about entering into the specifics of people’s lives; we must not lose sight of what God is doing in the world. This “message of reconciliation” is at the heart of the gospel (2 Corinthians 5:19).

In salvation and in the growth process, God is reconciling things, bringing them back to the way they should be. So, this means that God is bringing life back to the way that it was created. He is restoring us to himself―the source of life―and helping us to get realigned with him and the way he designed life to work. That purpose transcends any of our circumstances and also helps us to put them into the perspective of the long view.