written by Adam McGahagin

There’s something about putting Christ right in the middle of your relationships; whether that be friendships, dating, or a marriage. I’m not exactly sure what happens, but when Jesus comes into the conversation, you feel something inside you. It’s like there’s a fire and love spills out. If one can find people willing to engage in legitimate conversation about Jesus, they, too, will thrive, (I believe). Also, the innate desire to grow in and share Christ will thrive. It’s really a fantastic thing.

When relationships get broken, whatever the reason, it pretty much sucks. I had these two friends I used to hang out with all the time and we would thrive in conversation. It wasn’t always about Jesus, but when we were together, we were free. We got along great and because of that, awesome things always happened. Whether Jesus was our prime focus, or we were just goofing off, we all shared the common element of Christ, and we enjoyed ourselves. But because of stupid things, one of the friends and I stopped talking for quite some time. Tonight, that broken relationship was restored.

And because of the forgiveness, I had the opportunity to hang out with her and her boyfriend at Waffle House. We goofed off something fierce, but eventually the conversation turned to Jesus. It was amazing. Having shared similar experiences with Church, we talked about how we felt we were treated “back in the day”. We spoke of injustice and judgement. And we were able to talk about our friends and how much they’ve changed. This lead to a brainstorm session on how we could help our friends and restore those lost relationships.

Christ is in the restoration business. There are powers in Restorative Community.

Job 42:10 ESV

“And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before.”