Restoration

Looking out the window of my little home office this morning, I’m satisfied with Spring’s verdure.

The roses framing our ancient root cellar are green, but not in bloom. The sky is bright, but not blue. The ground is wet, but not sodden. The air is cool, but not cold. Leaves flutter in the gentle breeze like when a dad rumples his son’s hair.

It’s soft and quiet.



(view from an office window)

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I’m looking forward to the riot of color coming, a cacophony of visual celebration, blossoms of every color shot like fireworks on the fourth of July. Already, the huge snowball bush is passing its prime, saluting old Monarch Winter while marching to the beat of the sun. But even its whiteness blends with the whiteness of the sky this morning and whispers of unhurried progress from season . . . to season . . . to season.

The scene is balm to my soul. I know what I’d be doing if the sun were shining and the sky were blue: I’d be hopping around our place, trying to “accomplish something.” There’s planting and pruning and weeding enough for a Saturday forty-eight hours long. But that’s not what’s needed most.

After a long and busy week, I’m weary, deeply weary. I’m used up, empty as a dry tea kettle, and more doing won’t re-fill the pot.

I need quiet, a time to sort through life with my God.

David’s shepherd song runs though my mind: “. . . He restores my soul.” The words drip with peace. It’s not a self-satisfied, achievement-driven, accomplishment-based smugness that David describes, but a renewal of the inner man. It’s not circumstantial change he has in mind, but a substantial alteration of the state of my soul. God is in the business of restoring my soul.

At another point in David’s life, he said, “On the day I called, You answered me. My strength of soul you increased.” In the midst of a whirlwind world, God is our refuge. In the day when we’re overpowered by need, God is our strength. And He says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Let Me untangle your deepest troubles; let Me unwind your intensity, unravel your overwrought mind. Be quiet—and let Me restore your soul.

God often works in the quietness. Yes, He shouts in the thunder and roars through the surging waves, but with those who will sit before Him, He often draws very close and whispers.

I need Him to whisper on this gray morning. I’m listening for Him to say again, “I love you,” to hear Him call me “son.” I need Him to reach into my soul and make meaning out of the flurry of life, not in some didactic way, but in that wordless story woven between a man and his God. I need Him.

There is time enough for other things—for other things in their own time. But these moments are for quiet, for God.

He restores my soul.

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© June 2012 by Robert G. Robbins