Personal Restoration - The Game Changer

It all starts with you. Yes, you!

Don’t read this and think of your better half or that difficult co-worker or an obnoxious neighbour. As you read Psalm 23 you will realise that it’s written for the individual and not for a community. It’s meant to be a declaration for each one of us of who we choose God to be, where we find Him and what we do along with Him. Verse 3 of this Psalm has David mentioning that God restores his soul (ESV). It implies an ongoing process and not something that is one-and-done. It’s a lifelong process.

The word for soul in Hebrew is nephesh which is the seat of our emotions, our will, our feelings and our thoughts. It is what drives every other part of our life. A restoration of this part of our lives will cause an overhaul because it is a reworking of the deepest parts of us. This is far from easy, in fact, it will feel hard many times.

Hard because for a very long time, we have made excuses for those parts of our lives. We say “well I’m just an angry person” or “my family brings up this side of me” or “you have no idea what I have had to deal with in life that has made me this way”. On and on the excuses go! Restoration will require that you take ownership of those less-than-nice personality traits and present them to God.

It’s hard because it will require commitment from you to get closer and closer to God. Since He is Holy and sin can’t stand in His presence as we grow closer to Him our own sin will stand out more to us until we repent and release it to Him.

It’s also hard because it will happen in a secret place, in silence and in darkness - no one except you and God are involved in it. He reshapes your thinking, your inner wiring, your emotions etc.

It’s hardest because it won't always be appreciated by others (even those close to you). They would prefer your old persona not the new creation in Christ.

God knows where you come from - He knows what influences shaped you, scarred you and changed you. He desires to restore you to His original design- the one that was not touched by the fallen state of the world. That is what the Holy Spirit does, He restores us until we resemble Jesus!

Think it through:

Ask God to bring it mind one incident from your past that you need restoration in.

Pray for it:

Ask Him to heal you from the hurt that incident caused you. Ask Him to renew your heart and mind so that you can move forward in wholeness.