Lent Devotional: RestoreSample

Restore: God is restoring communities

Who do you think of when you hear the word “community”? We look up and down our streets and think of our friends and neighbors, those who share our postcodes, hobbies, and values.

But when we think of “God restoring our communities” our definition changes. Throughout scripture Jesus consistently restored communities by uniting polar opposites: the tax collectors and the disciples, the prostitutes and the priests, the diseased and the healthy.

In Isaiah 58:12, the prophet uses rebuilding a city as a metaphor for what God’s people can achieve when we wholeheartedly follow him. In restoring the city, we are called to restore the ruins, the rubble and the broken. As God restores communities he asks us to do the same. So we restore the fringes, those who need us, those who are least like us, welcoming them into God’s family.

Lord, please shift our understanding of community to include the people we don’t see. Please help us to be the restorers of your global community, as we look to lift people out of poverty. When it comes to our communities, help us to choose togetherness over separation, and action over apathy.

Dan Preston, Tearfund