“My beloved is mine and I am His.” (Song of Solomon 2:16 NIV)
John Eldredge writes that divine romance is far older and much more reliable than matrimony. I’ve only been married twenty-one years and I’d have to agree. God’s love never fails. His mercies are new every morning. He lays down His life for His bride again again and again. Restoration and wholeheartedness lay at the center of this love; they are central to God’s agenda for His beloved.
“You are in the process of restoration, at the center of which is a recovery of wholeheartedness.” John Eldredge
Wholeheartedness is necessary for us to love and trust God in return.
“If you look for Me wholeheartedly, you will find Me. “I will be found by you.”” (Jeremiah 29:13 NLT)
A foreign missionary and dear friend of mine preached this text in a youth service of ours five years ago. He implored our students to seek God wholeheartedly. It never before occurred to me that restoration must have it’s way with us for us to be intact enough to truly seek Him, to love Him with the reckless abandon He displays in loving us. John Eldredge’s words remind us that restoration’s goal is an unbroken heart, an undivided heart, a mended, whole heart. It is only from the place of wholeness that we can tuly know and respond to God in unwavering confidence and adoration.
“I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and bring you home again to your own land.” (Jeremiah 29:14 NLT)
Because the nation of Judah was about to head into exile, we suppose that this text relates to their eventual return to Jerusalem. In fact, this is what the original audience assumed, too. Yet, bible scholars are quick to point out that Judah never did experience an en masse return to the Promised Land. Not at all. They lived out their prescribed time in exile and then wandered home, one prodigal at a time. They trickled in, a half-hearted smattering of lost sons and daughters instead of a united throng of returning refugees. This is confusing because the Old Testament prophetically points to a great re-collection that has not happened to date.
Perhaps our loving God was looking through a longer lens? Perhaps heaven is the ingathering we are still awaiting?
In any case, John Eldredge is right. Restoration is what brings us back around to wholehearted living, to seeking God with an unbroken, undivided heart. Like the wayward Israelites, we come home one at a time, broken and seeking a cure. We come home as individuals making bold decisions about who God is in our personal world. He’s mending and redeeming and calling the whole and the healed to Himself. One day, we’ll return to the Promised Land in droves.
“But from there you will search again for the Lord you’re God. And if you search for Him with all your heart and soul, you will find Him.” (Deuteronomy 4:29 NLT)
The healing of our heart and the finding of God are hopelessly intertwined. He’s the only One who can full restore and we are ill-equipped to love Him with our heart still broken. It is a powerful thing, to love a God who recreates us with His love. And one day the great ingathering will begin. We’ll learn once and for all that Home is well worth the wait.
Lord, we know we suffer with broken hearts and bruised souls. We take them to You. Heal us. Unite our hearts for You. Help us love You with the same level of abandon that You exhibit for us. May we be healed and whole in Your presence, ready to pick up Your purposes and lay aside our own. We await You ingathering, ecstatic to come Home to You. Amen.