Five-star Restorations

He who has begun a good work in you will complete it.

Philippians 1:6

If you have a lot of money and like to travel, check into five-star hotels that have the word restored in their descriptions. There’s a hotel in Venice, for example, in a masterfully restored fourteenth-century residence filled with Murano glass chandeliers, carved pink marble columns, stained glass, and gilded ceilings. In Amsterdam, a luxury hotel was created when a series of seventeenth-century canal houses were restored and turned into 230 unique rooms.

Most of us don’t have the money for five-star travel, but we can all appreciate the craft of restoration. It happens when something broken down is renovated. Somehow the architects and builders manage to make it more magnificent than it was originally. Restoration is more than restoring. It is improving.

That’s what God does with us. We’re under construction, and we may have broken-down areas in our lives. His aim isn’t simply to restore, but to edify, improve, and perfect that which concerns us. When God restored Job’s life, for example, He left him better than before. He can do the same with you.

If your progress seems slow while it appears those around you are engaged in remarkable success, just remember: Patience! God is not finished with you yet!

TED W. ENGSTROM