My husband has been cleaning out his garage this past month. Yes, I said “month!” My husband and I have been “re-purposers” from before re-purposing was cool. We just love taking something that no one else wants anymore and making something of purpose out of it.

Take antique furniture for example. Those who love these old items don’t mind the scrapes, scratches, bumps, and missing pieces. We see past all that to the beauty and wealth of history in them; imagining the wisdom they have gained from all they have experienced. We see the potential of what the item can become with just a little tender loving care.

I think God looks at all of us like that. He loves us just the way we are, with all our imperfections, and yet sees the wealth inside of us and what we have yet to give, no matter what the past has held.

Jeremiah 30–33:26 contains promises of restoration, and of the new covenant.

Jeremiah 31:3-4 says, “The Lord appeared to us in the past saying, ’I have loved you with an everlasting love: I have drawn you with unfailing kindness, I will build you up again . . .’”

Verses 31-34 continue, “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”

Chapter 32 portrays the certainty of restoration through Jeremiah’s purchase of a field, even as Israel was about to be taken away from the land into captivity.

I am so thankful our God has been in the re-purposing/restoration business since the beginning of time. My prayer is that we will love, like Jesus loves; we will see, like Jesus sees; and we will help, like Jesus helps. Let’s all try to be a little more like Jesus today then we were yesterday