April 11, 2001
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.
Isaiah 58:12
It is and has always been the heart of God that he desires his people to be rebuilt, restored, renewed and refreshed continually. Everything God does in our lives is directed to bring us to this place. After their captivity God desired for his people to rebuild their city, the temple, the walls, their worship.. everything God had designed for them to have since the beginning he wanted them to have it all again... in even greater glory than they had at first. The times and the situations are different today but God's heart is the same. Our lives are at times laid to waste by sin, ours and others. There are areas in our lives that are desolate or barren. There is an overgrowth of junk in our hearts and lives because areas were left untended... God desires for those very areas to be cleared out and restored! Although God ultimately does the building and restoring in our lives he says the people will be called two things; First, Repairer of Broken Walls - in Israel's day for a city's wall to have a breach in it was fatal... their walls were their protection against enemies. That applies to us today as well... if we have undealt with stuff in our lives then our walls, our defensive armor so to speak, has major cracks in it and that can be fatal for us spiritually... these are places where satan can get in and continually work to destroy us. The second name is the one that has helped me the most today; Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. The meaning here is that because of Israel's desolation access roads to where they lived, paths they should have frequented, would have become impassable because things will have grown their inappropriately and not been tended to; trees, brambles, thorn bushes etc.. In the same way our hearts or different parts of our hearts can also grow desolate and impassable leading to a distance in our relationship with God, or problems in relationships in general. Undealt with 'stuff' in life whether hurts or sin can allow all kinds of junk and other sin ...hopelessness, failure, bitterness, lack of trust, insecurity, poor self image etc... to grow up in us because our hearts were not tended to properly. This will effectively block paths that God has always designed would allow free and easy access to our hearts - in our relationship with him and with other people. The good news for me today is that God wants to rebuild those parts of our lives, that I don't have to do the rebuilding God actually does... my only task, if you will, is to work on my relationship with him - to keep my eyes focused on him, to make my relationship with him the best it can be every day, to know that I if I live in love and obedience to him, then he will do the restoring and rebuilding in my life!