We sometimes cry out, “God, are you there? Do you see what is happening? Do you hear our cries for help? Have you abandoned what you have made?” We feel weak and powerless, unable to bring about the massive change that is needed. And so we pray and hope. But prayer is not a final act of desperation by people who don’t know what else to do. The Bible is punctuated with promises of restoration. These promises should remind you that God hasn’t abandoned his creation. 

We Need Restoration

It is hard to deny the fact that you and I live in a world that desperately needs to be restored. Just look at your media feed, or recall the sad things that have happened in your lifetime. The apostle Paul writes that we live in a world that is groaning, waiting for redemption (Rom. 8:22–23). You groan when you’re in pain; you groan when you’re tired; you groan when you’re disappointed; you groan when things around you seem irreparably broken. Such is the state of the world in which we live. The violence around us takes your breath away. The moral degradation of the culture seems to go on unabated. The witness of the church often seems compromised. Marriages break apart, and parents throw up their hands in frustration at their children. Entertainment media have ceased to be a safe place of escape. Even the physical world around us groans. The world today is not as God created it, and it does not function as God intended.

We sometimes cry out, “God, are you there? Do you see what is happening? Do you hear our cries for help? Have you abandoned what you have made?”

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