After you have suffered a little while, God Himself will restore you. 1 Peter 5:10
I’d love to learn how to restore old furniture. I have a hope chest that dates from WWII that was my maternal grandmother’s. When I received this cedar chest, it still had war bonds in it. It is in decent shape, but it needs some TLC on the exterior wood. It will be a project to tackle after my son’s wedding, and after my feet are on the mend or healed.
I seem to be accumulating quite a bit of things on my list of things to do after. My biggest dream is to hike the trail in Spain and France. I told Coach that I wanted to do that, so I need to be restored to that level. “Yup. No problem,” he said.
And the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. I Peter 5:10
While the title of this post is RESTORE, I think I would like to back up and take a look at the phrase, “In a little while.” My definition means this afternoon, or I’ll take a nap, in a little while. Or, the sun will come out in a little while after the clouds pass by. Pretty short term. But God is outside of time. He stepped into time when He spoke creation into being. He came into our time to have a relationship with us. Awesome, in my book.
Peter uses this word, oligos, four times in his short letter, 1 Peter. This Greek word, oligos means puny (in extent, degree, duration or value), especially somewhat, little, few or small. How come when I use the word suffer, I NEVER attach the word puny to it? As we see here, Peter uses this word to describe suffering. Peter was a man who suffered, saw suffering, saw Jesus suffer. He knew about suffering. And yet, when he chose to write about it, the Holy Spirit prompted him to write oligos.
Then, I need to get on board with that.
A few nights ago, I stumbled onto this verse, and noticed the many dates that are written next to it. I added one, May 25, 2021, to go along with five that are already there. As I was meditating on what God was saying to me, I felt great comfort in knowing that God, Himself, will restore me. And, with this injury, it really is God who will restore me. This type of injury is already weird, so it will take His mighty hand to fully restore me so I can “climb every mountain and ford every stream.”
RESTORE
Now that I have “after a little while” down, what about this word restore? In my head I want to jump right here and not wait, but God in His grace is having me wait a little while. He will restore me, but what does it mean? Hold on to your hat for this one – restore means: repair, adjust, mend, put in order, arrange, make perfect.
I know I can wait for this.
To be made whole again, perfectly? To be mended? God could not have chosen better words for what He is going to do to restore me. Because I actually had broken feet – for 8 months. So my bones, ligaments, tendons need to be repaired, adjusted (which they are on a weekly basis), mended, put in order because they keep wanting to fall out of order, arranged the way they are supposed to be and made perfect.
When I had my moment the other day, I knew this was for me. God was assuring me that indeed my feet would be restored. And it gave me great joy. I felt like I was on holy ground and He allowed me to peek into what He has in store.
PRAYER
Yes, Lord. I can wait. I can be patient. I can hold on with patient expectation for Your complete and perfect restoration. You are good. And I thank You so much for Your complete restoration. Please help me to be patient and to give You glory in the waiting. AMEN
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