“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” ~Luke 19

Credit: godlywoman.co

Hi there friends! Today I have some heavy thoughts swirling in my mind, so I hope you’ll bear with me.

The verse above, in context, speaks about Jesus saving His people from their due punishment: eternal life apart from Him.

However, when I heard it this morning, it struck me that Jesus came to save a lot of things. Yes, this includes our souls which is by far the most important! But He also seeks to save our hearts and the valuable things we’ve lost on life’s journey.

What have you lost that was precious to you? Maybe…

A relationship. A person you loved. Your dignity. Purity. A job and financial provision. Respect. Peace. Your joy. Perhaps even your faith.

I admit we face a lot of perplexing situations in life. At the top of the list is losing our most treasured possessions (and not just the material things). Why people sometimes experience difficulties is unfathomable to me (my thoughts today are on Colorado Springs)! Our hearts go out to people dealing with grief and loss.

But even more than having compassion for the hurting, we long to see God RESTORE all things to His people, as He speaks about in Joel 2:

“Be glad, O children of Zion,
and rejoice in the Lord your God,
for He has given the early rain for your vindication;
He has poured down for you abundant rain,
the early and the latter rain, as before.

“The threshing floors shall be full of grain;
the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
I will restore to you the years 
that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
My great army, which I sent among you.

“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
and praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has dealt wondrously with you.
And My people shall never again be put to shame.”

How wonderful that God says He will RESTORE THE YEARS that were taken from us! I’ve lost many years to the devourer. Have you?

The persistent, fiery question occupying my thoughts lately is this: When will this day of redemption come? Must we wait til we reach heaven, or will we “see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (aka here on earth)?

I believe the answer is BOTH. Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost, not only our souls from a dark eternity (our long-range blessing) but also today’s blessing:

Jesus wants to restore the things someone took from us without our permission, what we foolishly surrendered through our poor decisions/outright rebellion, or what the enemy tried to destroy in our lives (our family, marriage, physical body, reputation, finances, peace of mind, even our “sweet sleep”)!

Do we always know the when & the how of Jesus’s saving miraculous work? Does it always come packaged the way we want? No and no. His ways are higher and at times a mystery to us earth-huggers. We simply know that Jesus is seeking to save what was lost in the world… but He faces some obstacles.

For starters: We all have a sworn enemy who wants nothing more than to ruin our lives! But for believers, because he can’t have our God-betrothed souls, he goes for the jugular: Our hearts.

The devil is a thief, a murderer, and a destroyer! He knows that a “heart attack” will steal our life. This is why Proverbs 4 warns us to “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” 

The enemy doesn’t want us to have the abundant life Jesus came to give us! And he definitely doesn’t want us sharing such life with anyone else.

So he aims to destroy anything good (aka Godly) in our lives by targeting 1) our FAITH in God and His goodness, 2) our HOPE that He’s restoring our life’s losses, and 3) God’s LOVE from touching our hearts and the people’s around us.

But sometimes I forget I have a sworn enemy, so I blame my life’s mishaps and every winding road on God Himself.

This morning I asked God where His love was in my life… and why I didn’t feel it most of the time. I asked Him why He seems to expect so much of me while at the same time not healing vital parts of my heart that are required for what He’s calling me to do. He knows my desires and sees my struggle to overcome, so why hasn’t He fixed it?

How can a human lift a heavy burden with one healthy arm? How can a bird fly with a broken wing? I haven’t understood Him, nor His ways, nor where I fit into them.

So I prayed and listened and started writing. And this is what came out.

Maybe He wants to remind you and I that He IS healing us and restoring us – but He needs our cooperation. And patience. He needs our prayers to invite Him into our broken areas and the losses we’ve endured in life. He needs us to guard our hearts wisely and take responsibility for its meanderings. He needs us to worship Him in the meantime – not chase something/someone else – as we wait for Him to be revealed in our circumstance.

We need to be careful not to blame God for the devil’s work. Or the work of our own hands. Or the work of another person’s hands. Or the results of living in an imperfect world broken by human sin.

We need to trust that God is restoring the years we’ve lost and that He’s mending our hearts. This reminds me of the butterfly in the cocoon who cannot understand why the struggle to break free is so difficult… only to learn afterwards that the struggle is what strengthened her wings to fly.

We need to remind ourselves and each other that Jesus is actively seeking to save what was lost in our lives and on this earth. That is His stated goal [see this post’s opening line]! If we lost our abundant life along the way, then we need to trust that He’s actively working to restore it to us.

I’m reminded of this awesome proverb today:

“But if [a thief] is found out, he must restore seven times [what he stole]; he must give the whole substance of his house [if necessary—to meet his fine].” ~Proverbs 6

If we apprehend “the thief” in our lives, we’ll receive seven-fold what we lost. Let’s pray this together:

“Father, thank You for Your word that shines light on our struggles! We ask that You please show us where the enemy has stolen from us. We thank You that he be found out immediately, and declare that he must restore to us seven-fold what he took! We thank You Father for restoring to us what is rightfully ours through Your son Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen.”