Yesterday, Jan and I were asked to bring a word of encouragement at the end of the service at our home church in Medford, Oregon. When I was asked to share, the Lord gave me two words, “rebuild and restore.” Around those two words, the Lord would form the content of a word of encouragement.

The day before I got up to share on Sunday morning, I did some research on the two words. It was the prefix of “re” that caught my attention. The prefix means “back, “again”, “to take something back to the original.” Rebuild has at its root “build” that means “to form by uniting materials into a composite whole.” The root of restore is “store” meaning to “gather and store something for future use”, like placing something in a storehouse.

When I spoke about rebuilding and restoring, I sensed I was speaking to a wider audience than my local church. I was speaking to other churches, individuals, and families that make up the Body of Christ. The Lord was encouraging people to believe their future is bright and hope-filled because they are following the Lord and His promise to always do it again, to bring us back again to His original plan after a season of disruption and displacement. He will be faithful to refill our spiritual storehouse.

We saw what happened last year as a negative challenge. The Lord saw it as a hope-filled opportunity to reorder His Church resetting her priorities to reengage culture for greater impact. If we can see the events of last year from that perspective anything is possible for those who believe that God can always do it again no matter what has taken place.