Miracles...Restoration

“We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order. God did not originally make the world to have disease, hunger, and death in it. Jesus has come to redeem where it is wrong and heal the world where it is broken. His miracles are not just proofs that He has power but also wonderful foretastes of what he is going to do with that power. Jesus’s miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts, that the world we all want is coming.” - The Reason for God, p. 96, Tim Keller

Freedom among limitations

I'm going through a situation at work right now (actually right now, in the moment) where I am becoming frustrated. Before I go further, I'll back up a little bit.

I've been in this training program for a bank since last July. The goal of the program is to teach the nine of us going through it more about credit (loans), and to eventually be a commercial lender (Loan Officer for Small Businesses), for the most part. Well, 4 weeks ago, the nine of us began to travel around the Atlanta area and visit a different bank office (branch) for two weeks and observe credit analysts (people who put together loan packages). I went to Tucker for the first rotation, my old stomping grounds of Marietta for the second, and now I'm in Cumming for two weeks.

Now that you're caught up, here's why I'm feeling this way. You see, every loan package that is put together is done differently depending on which branch you are at. Overall, there is a structure that remains constant, but underneath this larger structure, things change up a good bit. Some people use charts, others rearrange how they input information, etc.

Here's my thought, everyone likes to do things differently and has a feeling of independence because of it. Limitations to one set way would seem too constraining, and wouldn't allow people the real freedom to think for themselves. And for the most part, that's how today's secular world views something like Christianity (or any other set of beliefs). They say it's too constraining. They say limitations to ideas and behavior doesn't give people the freedom that they want or need. But, if you look at my example, what I need and desire is limitations set so that I can perform more freely in the environment of creating loan packages.

Tim Keller says it this way:

"A fish, because it absorbs oxygen from water rather than air, is only free if it is restricted and limited to water...[so]in many areas of life, freedom is not so much the absence of restrictions as finding the right ones, the liberating restrictions. Those that fit with the reality of our nature and the world produce greater power and scope for our abilities and a deeper joy and fulfillment."

"The popular concept--that we should each determine our own morality--is based on the belief that the spiritual realm is nothing at all like the rest of the world."

"Freedom, then is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fir our nature and liberate us."

"The love of Christ constrains. Once you realize how Jesus changed for you and gave himself for you, aren't afraid of giving up your freedom and therefore finding your freedom in him"
- The Reason for God pgs 46-50

Restoration

"The Biblical view of things is resurrection--not a future that is just a consolation for the life we never had but a restoration of the life you always wanted.  This means that every horrible thing that ever happened will not only be undone and repaired but will in some way make the eventual glory and joy even greater."

The Reason for God, pg. 32; Tim Keller