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Like we restore old furniture, God can restore our lives

Sandra Bretschneider

Published: July 2, 2009

My husband and I are in the process of decorating our home. When it comes to our taste in furniture, we seem to be different from many people. We enjoy spending months searching for a unique, used piece of furniture rather than walking into a store and buying the first item that catches our eyes.
One of the first pieces we found for our living room was a small, wooden coffee table from a second-hand store. When I saw it for the first time, I immediately thought of its potential.
I loved this table. Originally, it was stained dark brown. I painted it red. I loved the red color, but I decided to crackle it and paint over it with another color. I wanted to give it a shabby chic appearance.
I tried two combinations: white and red and beige and maroon. Both made the table look terrible. The white and red combination did not compliment our living room décor. The beige and maroon came out beige and pink. A combination of 11 layers of paint and crackle went on this table before I realized it needed stripping.
Through all the frustration of painting this table repeatedly and then realizing the layers of paint needed to be stripped, God spoke to me.
He spoke to me about how we become distant from Him. We pursue what we think is best for us and convince ourselves that our wants are actually needs.
We ignore the fact that God is the One who created our inmost being (Psalm 139:13).
He knows who we are, but we fail to acknowledge Him and His desires for our life. In the Old Testament, Hosea's unfaithful wife, Gomer, makes a statement that may be similar to where our heart is in our pursuit of the world. In Hosea 1:5b she says, "I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink."
When we pursue what the world has for us, instead of what God wants for us, we gradually become distant from Him.
I like to think of this distance in layers, similar to the layers of paint on my table. We add these layers on ourselves each time we choose someone or something other than God.
Unknowingly, these layers gradually cover up the beautiful design God meant us to have. When we finally realize the hideous mess we have become, the only One who finds us truly desirable is God.
If we turn to Him, He will strip us of our layers, but He will also restore us. Hosea 6:1-2 gives a beautiful invitation to restoration by saying, "Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us; he has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence."
I finally stripped, sanded and repainted my table. It sits in our living room, in a beautiful shade of red, and often reminds me of what Jesus Christ has done for me.

Sandra Bretschneider lives in Burke County and is studying speech-language pathology as a graduate student at Appalachian State University. Her e-mail address is bretschneidersl@appstate.edu.