Day 12

I have loved you with an everlasting love... Again I will rebuild you and you shall be rebuilt.

—JEREMIAH 31:3-4 (NKJV)

I wish I could say that after writing “The Restorer” I never looked back. In reality, God’s work of restoring my heart that had been broken by pain AND my own sin had just begun and, I know now, won’t be complete until my time here on Earth is over. There is always a new layer He needs to strip away.

A decade after writing those words I found myself in a spiritual desert. Once again, pain caused by circumstances, by other people, AND by my own disobedience overwhelmed me and I went into hiding. I stayed there for a long time.

In the desert, I didn’t lash out, I lashed in, withdrawing deeper into my own woundedness where my disappointment with myself dominated my mind and haunted my heart:

How could I have wasted all those years... Opportunities that I had to help people gone forever...

Things I should have written, words I should have spoken, truths I should have taught...

Gone forever.

This woundedness went so deep and I withdrew from life so fully and for so long, that I started to fear that my gifts were past their expiration date and that God could not, or would not, use me anymore. I believed that I had disobeyed beyond hope of Him ever wanting me back.

I forgot that God’s love is an “again” kind of love. His rebuilding work in us is never done.

In our spiritual lives, we don’t go from mountaintop experiences to mountaintop experience. We go from the mountaintop down into the valley, across the plain, through the desert, and then begin the climb to the next height. Most of our lives as followers of Jesus are spent in the desert, on the plains, and in the valleys. It’s in the low places that God’s best work is done inside of us.

Maybe remembering this will help you better understand this place that you find yourself in.

Maybe today you need a reminder that God’s love is an AGAIN kind of love.

If you’re spiritually dry, hear Him say to you, “AGAIN I will quench your thirst.”

If you’re breaking under the weight of sorrow, hear Him say to you, “AGAIN I will bear your burdens.”

If you’ve lost your way because of sin, hear Him say to you, “AGAIN I will bring you back.”

If you’re crippled by fear, hear Him say to you, “AGAIN I will be your strength and shield.”

If you’re numb, hear Him say to you, “AGAIN I will wake you up.”

Thank God today for his AGAIN kind of love—and the promise of new beginnings.