When my wife and I moved into our inner-city apartment, it was a mess. The previous tenants had wrecked it. It was dirty and things were broken. The apartment needed restoration. We repainted and recarpeted it. We renovated the kitchen, laundry, and bathroom. Sometimes, similar to our apartment, we are in need of restoration. Our lives are a mess, sometimes caused by our own doing. The poet in Psalm 85 finds himself in a similar predicament.

Yet, in Psalm 85, although the poet asks God to restore his fortunes, his pleas are not just for personal restoration. Psalm 85 is a prayer for the renewal of the nation. The nation is suffering. There is no peace or shalom. For Israel, ″peace″ meant to live prosperously in the land God had given them, free from the fear of enemies. But this was not her present experience and now she knows why. Her sins have angered God (v. 5). So, the psalmist looks back to when God forgave their sins in the past and restored them (vv. 1-3) and asks God to ″revive us again″ (v. 6).

The psalmist knows that the people need to do two things in order for the Lord to again ″grant us your salvation″ (v. 7). Firstly, they must ″fear him″ (v. 9). Fearing God means recognising His rightful rule over our lives and the terrible consequence of His ″fierce anger″ (v. 3) if we disobey Him. Disobedience is foolish and so, secondly, the nation must ″not turn to folly″ (v. 8). Pursuing folly means forgetting to fear God.

After numerous pleas for forgiveness and restoration, the psalm ends on a wonderful note of hope. Verse 10 is one of the most beautiful verses in Psalms. ″Love and faithfulness meet together″ is a picture of mutual delight as God's love and His people's obedience embrace each other. This love is God's love for us shown in the covenant promises He made to be our God and bless us. Faithfulness, which ″springs forth from the earth″ (v. 11), is our response to this love. We are His faithful servants (v. 8). The second half of verse 10 repeats this truth with an even more intimate picture, ″righteousness and peace kiss each other″. God's righteousness, which is His commitment to keep His promises to bless His people, ″looks down from heaven″ (v. 11) and brings the peace or shalom the people are longing for.

Salvation is the meeting of love and faithfulness. God the Father reached out to us in love, and God the Son, His perfectly faithful servant, was obedient to the point of death on the cross. The result is the wonderful peace we now enjoy. Do you need renewal and restoration? Go to the cross, where love and faithfulness met.