Restored in a Moment, Rebuilt in the Journey
When God Changes Us Instantly and Shapes Us Slowly
When Grace First Breaks In
Thirty years ago, I bought a one-hundred-year-old house.
We spent the first ten months restoring everything we could reach—floors, wiring, walls, the works.
And when the dust finally settled, we stepped back and said:
“We’re done.”
We weren’t.
We spent the next thirty years repairing what time revealed, strengthening what we didn’t know to fix, and restoring what seasons wore down.
Some changes happened fast.
Others unfolded slowly and quietly—layer by layer.
And that’s exactly how God restores us.
His transformation is both a moment and a movement.
An encounter that changes everything and a process that forms us into the image of Love.
Holy Interruptions — When Grace Breaks In
Scripture is filled with holy interruptions—moments where God steps in and everything shifts.
Saul, on the road to Damascus, experienced one of the most dramatic.
A single encounter knocked him to the ground, blinded him, and confronted him with the risen Christ.
In that instant, the persecutor met the Person he’d been fighting against.
Grace redirected him in a moment.
But the instant transformation was only the beginning.
Ongoing Restoration — When Love Takes Its Time
After that life-altering encounter, Saul didn’t enter ministry the next day.
Instead, he disappeared into Arabia for three years (Galatians 1:15–18).
Three years of being poured out.
Three years of God pouring Himself in.
Three years of hidden reconstruction.
And here’s what many miss:
God never changed Saul’s name.
Luke simply says, “Saul, who was also called Paul…” (Acts 13:9).
Paul wasn’t a divine renaming — it was his Gentile name stepping into its calling.
The name didn’t change.
The man did.
Saul fell in a moment.
Paul emerged through a process.
Instant grace began the story.
Ongoing restoration wrote the chapters.
Peter walked this path too—bold one moment, broken the next.
Israel walked it—freed in a night, formed over forty years.
David lived it—anointed quickly, shaped slowly.
This is how God restores:
The shock of grace followed by the shaping of grace.
God Restores Us Into Love
Our Father is not in a hurry — He is intentional.
He is the God of sudden freedom and the God of slow formation.
2 Corinthians 3:18 says we are “being transformed… from glory to glory.”
Not all at once.
Not overnight.
But through moments and seasons guided by Love.
He restores us into the likeness of Jesus, Who is Love. And He finishes everything He starts.
Reflection
Where has God given you an instant breakthrough that He is now deepening through process?
What “hidden years” might actually be God rebuilding your foundations?
How can you embrace His slow, steady restoration today?
Prayer