This morning I take note of God’s process of restoration in Psalm 80: 8-11. Following great disappointment and destruction, the psalmist records how God worked in the past. He writes:
You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it, and it took root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches. It sent out is boughs to the Sea, its shoots as far as the River.
Something about those verbs resonates so deeply in terms of what God does to restore. He brings us out of where we were; He drives out enemies, plants us in the new thing, and we take root. I think of the trust it required of the Israelites to live in the awareness of God working even when it took time and especially even in the midst of opposition.
There’s a necessary coming out from where we are, a clearing, a planting, and a rooting. Whenever God calls us to some new place, new work, or even new people, we might consider the process of what it takes to flourish. And maybe when I do not see the results quickly, I consider how God is clearing ground for the new thing coming.