Title: Restored at Last
Author: Christopher B. Harbin
Text: Luke 15:1-32
It's rather hard to miss something we never had. It is hard to appreciate what we do have until we lose it. Restoring what was lost, is something only those affected can truly understand. How can we appreciate what we never lost, much less having it restored? We only grieve what has significance to us. What is significant to you and to me are going to be different things, whether we speak of objects, honors, accomplishments, relationships, or something else entirely. The joy of restoration is caught up in the value we attach to what is lost. How do we grapple with restoration from God's perspective?
Elon Musk earned an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for the greatest amount of personal wealth ever lost-$182B over a span of two years. Then, he lost $29 Billion in one single day. I strain to wrap my mind anywhere near the concept of a billion. I can go from one to ten, to 100, and maybe even 1,000, tenuously holding the notion of multiplying each decimal place by a factor of ten. I could never visualize my 16 million neighbors in the city of São Paulo. The difference between a million neighbors in Recife and 26 million neighbors in the São Paulo metropolitan area was invisible lost on me, just numbers on a page.
A week ago, we expected an unknown number of kittens to be born in our home. Sunday night, they began making their appearance. Two days later, we noticed a major problem with one of them. More than a cleft palate, he had a septum dividing his incomplete mouth, making it impossible to eat. There was nothing to do for him. How can we shift to grieve a new life barely within our awareness, yet so already deemed precious?
There is no way to grieve the loss of a hundred people, a thousand, or a million, much less six million more significantly than a single loved one. The one is within our reach and understanding. The millions remain beyond what we can conceive, muc ...
Author: Christopher B. Harbin
Text: Luke 15:1-32
It's rather hard to miss something we never had. It is hard to appreciate what we do have until we lose it. Restoring what was lost, is something only those affected can truly understand. How can we appreciate what we never lost, much less having it restored? We only grieve what has significance to us. What is significant to you and to me are going to be different things, whether we speak of objects, honors, accomplishments, relationships, or something else entirely. The joy of restoration is caught up in the value we attach to what is lost. How do we grapple with restoration from God's perspective?
Elon Musk earned an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records for the greatest amount of personal wealth ever lost-$182B over a span of two years. Then, he lost $29 Billion in one single day. I strain to wrap my mind anywhere near the concept of a billion. I can go from one to ten, to 100, and maybe even 1,000, tenuously holding the notion of multiplying each decimal place by a factor of ten. I could never visualize my 16 million neighbors in the city of São Paulo. The difference between a million neighbors in Recife and 26 million neighbors in the São Paulo metropolitan area was invisible lost on me, just numbers on a page.
A week ago, we expected an unknown number of kittens to be born in our home. Sunday night, they began making their appearance. Two days later, we noticed a major problem with one of them. More than a cleft palate, he had a septum dividing his incomplete mouth, making it impossible to eat. There was nothing to do for him. How can we shift to grieve a new life barely within our awareness, yet so already deemed precious?
There is no way to grieve the loss of a hundred people, a thousand, or a million, much less six million more significantly than a single loved one. The one is within our reach and understanding. The millions remain beyond what we can conceive, muc ...
There are 12958 characters in the full content. This excerpt only shows a 2000 character sample of the full content.
Price: $5.99 or 1 credit
.jpg)
