by Helen Jesze 3rd July 2026

“Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.”
Psalm 51 KJV

“And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten…” Joel 2:25a KJV
“He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s
sake.” Psalm 23:3 ESV

Last week, I was working on the manuscript of my new book. I had written it before
we had a computer, and now I had to scan it all in. I was working hard and this week,
I had everything in my PC and in a file, ready to send off to the publisher. I also made
a copy of the file, just in case!

One evening, I thought, I need to get rid of this extra material and was deleting away,
quite merrily! Then I went to the file I had prepared with all my book material, and it
was empty!! Also, the extra copied file was empty! How could this be?! I am sure
many of you PC experts would know the answer! Well, there was only one thing for
it, I would have to scan everything in again, send it to documents and then into a file.
I had just laid the first page of my material onto the scanner, when the thought came,
look in your trash-bin. Sure enough, all my book-material was in the bin! Hallelujah!
Thank you, Holy Spirit! So I “Restored” the whole of the 150 pages. When I went
through them, I saw many had gone back into the original file, but many had gone
into Documents. So they needed to be dealt with, which took some more time – BUT– “Restore” had done the work – what a wonderful word this is!
Of course, this got me thinking. What does it mean to “restore”?

To restore means to bring back something to its original state or condition,e.g. to
restore furniture – when your coffee-table has got rings from coffee-mugs – the
polished surface can be restored.
To restore also means to bring back to its original place or owner.
To restore a person to a certain position.

God spoke so often about “restoring” and “restoration” in the Bible. I have quoted
three of the Scriptures above, but there are many more. The Psalmist asked the Lord
to restore the joy of his salvation. Perhaps he had lost this joy and he knew God could
restore it to him. God can restore our joy, if we have lost it for some reason, dear
friend.

The years of our life which have been eaten by the locusts – in other words
‘destroyed’ – can be restored by God in a way that no-one else can. David in Psalm 23
asks that his “soul” should be restored – our mind, will and emotions. How important
it is that these areas of our life be restored by our loving Heavenly Father. He will lift
our feet out of the miry clay and set them upon a rock, the Rock Christ Jesus!
I was thinking also about the many lives that look as though they have landed in the
devil’s “Trash-Box”. One more ‘click’ and they would be gone for ever, never to be
reclaimed. But Jesus has His hand on the ‘mouse’ and He is ‘restoring’ lives, right, left
and centre! Just like I ‘restored’ my manuscript! The Trash-Box time will be just a
memory, bringing a message out of the mess, a testimony from the test!

This new book of mine is also about restoration – a Christian young man, called to be
a missionary wanders away from the Lord, falls into sin and the resulting pain and
rejection, the terrrible consequences which followed, affecting not only him but many
others. Then it shows about people he has hurt being restored and after several years
of wandering in a spiritual wilderness, he himself, is restored to his faith, his calling
and several other wonderful surprises God had in store!

Coincidence? I don’t think so! God knows how to get our attention, doesn’t He?! Dear
friend, I want to encourage you today, if you are in a situation where you need
restoration, and the answer seems so long in coming. I, myself, need restoration in a
certain part of my life and have waited many years, but I am still believing God. He is
faithful who has promised. Sometimes the restoration is a quick process, often it takes
time.

God is not in the throw-away business. He wants to take the failure areas in our
lives, change them and work everything out for His and our own good,
according to His divine Plan. He has the greatest and most successful restoration
program this world has ever seen!

So let us take heart today, and begin to rejoice that our God is at work, and He
knows what He is doing, and we will see the answer!