Restoration

I was looking at pictures of our home yesterday to make an album of our progress. I was reminded how things always look worse before they look better. The birth of anything is messy, the restoration of something already created even messier- the stripping away of years of damage done. Years ago, God warned me of the danger in trying to rid myself of the toxicity in my life without replacing it with His goodness & truth. I found when I focused on those

problems rather than setting my sights on Him, those problems only grew. I’ve found when I set my sights on Him & fill myself with His truth, those lies I was believing might surface & become more apparent, but they naturally fall away as I fill up on His grace. God is in the business of cleaning us from the inside out. He is a God who allows the wheat & tares to grow together before uprooting those tares. He’s a God who uses winds and storms to cause our roots to grow deeper.

A God who’s never wasteful of any situations we get ourselves into or plans the enemy has or wilderness seasons He’s led us in. He uses all of them to uproot any opinion that exalts itself above the knowledge of Him & uses our fiery trials to refine us as silver & make us His jewels. A God who would never empty our minds without the overflow of His grace. A God who restores the years the locusts have eaten. The messy seasons are incredibly hard to

live through, but the character added and the satisfaction and appreciation produced by the renewal of things once devalued is always worth it in the end. #godmakesallthingsnew #renewyourmind #renew #value