Psalm 71:20-21 NLT
'You have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again and lift me up from the depths of the earth. You will restore me to even greater honour and comfort me once again.'
The word “mystery” is often used in relation to God. This suggests that God is an enigma, often hard to comprehend and always beyond our understanding. As something of an academic, I trust my brain and have spent my life working things out through my active thought processes. However, God lies beyond human rationality. If I could satisfactorily explain God, then the God I explained could not be God. If God can be contained within the framework of the human mind, then God is no longer omniscient, omnipresent or omnipotent.
I’ve written previously about moving from the comfort zone into the learning zone. This makes me feel uncomfortable because I encounter what I don’t already know and so have to learn. Will I be successful in my learning? Can I gain greater understanding and new skills? Past learning experiences will deeply influence my willingness to enter the learning zone. Beyond the learning zone lies the panic zone. Here I completely fall apart, for what I encounter is far beyond my ability to manage. God never takes us into the panic zone, but I can foolishly put myself there.
The learning zone is where restoration work takes place. Here I reach for something I want, and God hears and answers my prayer. However, learning is in the gift of the teacher. So, the nature of that learning may prove uncomfortable – the “hardship” that the psalmist describes.
I find that I have continually to pass through angst and uncertainty each time I push into the learning circle. Yet, failure to do so simply means things can stagnate for a period, but after a while the abnormal becomes the normal and we turn a half-finished project into a comfort zone. Don’t ditch God; continue God’s work of restoration in your life.
QUESTION: How is God’s restoration process going in your life?
PRAYER: I don’t want to stagnate; I want to grow and be further restored, more into the likeness of Jesus.

Released on 13 Mar 2020