John Eldredge - Restoration Year: A 365-Day Devotional

Restoration Year

2018 John Eldredge

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January 1
A FRESH START

Is anything too hard for the L ORD ?

G ENESIS 18:14

J anuary 1. A brand-new year. Its the time of year we start thinking about making changes. This year, rather than writing a quick list of resolutions that well likely forget before February, maybe we should take a different approach. This is a good time for each of us to ask ourselves, What do I want to be different this year?

Sit with that for ten minutes. Let your heart surface and then... take it to Jesus in prayer. Lord, come into this. Show me the way. I will often ask God for his theme over my new year: Jesus, what is the theme of this year?

I do this every January, and it has proven a mighty rescue many times over. Usually, Jesus says one simple thing. One year I heard, Love. All through the year, I found myself needing to return to the simple truth of love. Another year it was, Restoration, and that was the year I took a short sabbatical and sought needed restoration.

Ask Jesus, What is the theme of this year, Lord? And when he speaks, write it down! Post it somewhere you will see it often. In very big letters.

January 2
WHAT EFFECT?

Long before [God] laid down earths foundations, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of his love, to be made whole and holy by his love.

E PHESIANS 1:4 THE MESSAGE

W e exercise because we want to grow stronger; we take vitamins in the hope of being healthy; we attend language classes expecting to learn a new language. We travel for adventure; we work in the hope of prospering; we love partly in the hope of being loved. So why Christianity? What is the effect Christianity is intended to have upon a person who becomes a Christian, seeks to live as a Christian?

The way you answer that question is mighty important. Your beliefs about this will shape your convictions about nearly everything else. It will shape your understanding of the purpose of the gospel; it will shape your understanding of what you believe God is up to in a persons life. What is Christianity supposed to do to a person?

God wants to make people whole and holy, by his love. To make you whole and holy by his love. Whole, and holythis is what you ache for.

Jesusdo I really believe this? What do I think you are actually up to in my life? Show me, Lord.

January 3
HEMMED IN

You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.

P SALM 139:5

A t the Fall, why did God curse Adam and Eve with an emptiness that nothing would be able to fill? Wasnt life going to be hard enough out there in the world, banished from the Garden? It seems unkind. Cruel, even.

He did it to save them. For as we all know, the heart shifted at the Fall. Something sent its roots down deep into their soulsthat mistrust of Gods heart and resolution to find life on their own terms. So God thwarted them. In love, he blocked their attempts until, wounded and aching, they turned to him for their rescue.

Jesus has to thwart you too. Your controlling and your hiding; the ways you seek to fill the ache within you. Otherwise, you would never fully turn to him for your rescue. Oh, you might turn to him for a ticket to heaven when you die. But inside, your heart remains broken far from the One who can help you.

And so you will see the gentle, firm hand of God in your life hemming you in. Wherever it is you have sought life apart from him, he disrupts your plans, your way of life that is not life at all.

How has God been hemming you in, disrupting the plans you have to make life work?

January 4
A HEART FOR HIS KINGDOM

God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart.

E CCLESIASTES 3:11 NLT

T he thing you are made for is the renewal of all things. God has given you a heart for his kingdomnot the wispy vagaries of a cloudy heaven, but the sharp reality of the world made new. This is one of the most important things you can know about yourself. Did you know this about yourself? When was the last time you told yourself, as you looked in the mirror in the morning, Good morning; you have a heart for the kingdom? This explains so much; it will be such an enormous help to you. It explains your anger and all of your addictions. It explains your cry for justice, and it also explains the growing hopelessness, resignation, cynicism, and defeat.

If you will listen with kindness and compassion to your own soul, you will hear the echoes of a hope so precious you can barely put words to it, a wild hope you can hardly bear to embrace. God put it there. He also breathed the corresponding promise into the earth; it is the whisper that keeps coming to you in moments of golden goodness. But of course, the secret to your unhappiness and the answer to the agony of the earth are one and the sameyou are longing for the kingdom of God. You are aching for Gods promise of the restoration of all things.