Lent Devotional: RestoreSample

Restore: God is restoring families We all know people who like to namedrop. They love to bask in the halo effect of the influential, rich or famous people they claim to know. Sometimes it seems their own status and identity is inseparable from those of the celebrities they talk about. In Psalm 68, God namedrops those people he has special interest in. He ties his identity to theirs. Their status matters to him. However, it is not the world’s powerful elite that he associates with – but the vulnerable, the weak, and the marginalized. Those of us who seek to be godly, must emulate God in this – caring for, associating with, delighting in and defining our very selves in terms of our relationship to the vulnerable. Being a Tearfund supporter is one way we can do this. However, Psalm 68 has a bigger challenge too. God places the lonely – the widow and the orphan – in families. This begs the question – whose families does he place them in? Surely the answer must be ours. Father God, we celebrate that you welcomed us into your family: you did not leave us as spiritual orphans but adopted us as your children. Please help us to welcome those who have been deprived of a family into our lives, homes and families, that we might restore as we have been restored. Amen. Krish Kandiah, Founding Director: Home for Good, Tearfund Ambassador