(60 second quick read)
Restoration is the fifth stage in God's plan for creation, what we call "The Five Chapter Gospel". It all began with Creation, and was followed by the Fall. The story doesn't end there, though. The cross offers us Redemption, which leads to Renewal, and finally, at the very end of it all, we arrive at Restoration. Today, we meditate on this last stage, and how the hope of Restoration can change the way we view our todays and our tomorrows.
Living in the here-and-now is a broken idea
There's an arrow in the image above, and it's leading in one direction and one direction only: towards infinity. And that's at odds with the way most of us live. We live in the "here and now", and we plan for the here and now. Not infinity, not the far-tomorrow, just today. The stark here, and the stark now.
Barring the eternal optimists in the room, the global here-and-now seems to be filled with a strife and a struggle that just refuses to die down. More war, more division, more otherness, more depression, more doubt. And as much as we would love to believe that this is a symptom exclusively of our times, the book of Romans tells us it’s not.
“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
Picture the whole of creation in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time, waiting for eternity to arrive. 2000 years ago, when this passage was written, they could already see that creation was groaning. They could already see that they were groaning in their day-to-day, and it continues to be the case down to this current day. It’s not easy, is it? It feels like there’s relief around the corner, that there’s a bend in the road beyond which the groaning will stop, that there’s a step we can take that makes it all feel like it’s enough. But there isn’t. Not yet, and surely not in the here-and-now.
THIS IS PART OF THE DEVOTIONAL SERIES TITLED “INFINITY FOCUS”. READ THE NEXT PART HERE.
