Psalm 80: Restore, Restore...RESTORE!

Psalm 80:1–7, 17–19 Hear us, Shepherd of Israel,    you who lead Joseph like a flock.You who sit enthroned between the cherubim,    shine forth  before Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh.Awaken your might;    come and save us Restore us, O God;    make your face shine on us,    that we may be saved. How long, Lord God Almighty,    will your anger smoulder    against the prayers of your people? You have fed them with the bread of tears;    you have made them drink tears by the bowlful You have made us an object of derision to our neighbours,    and our enemies mock us. Restore us, God Almighty;    make your face shine on us,    that we may be saved…. Let your hand rest on the man at your right hand,    the son of man you have raised up for yourself. Then we will not turn away from you;    revive us, and we will call on your name. Restore us, Lord God Almighty;    make your face shine on us,    that we may be saved. Reflection This psalm does not whisper its need.It repeats it. Restore us.Restore us.Restore us. The prayer circles back on itself the way grief does, the way exhaustion does, the way hope does when it has nowhere else to go. The psalmist knows who God is: Shepherd of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, radiant with glory. This is not a crisis of belief. It is a crisis of distance. God is named as powerful—and yet feels painfully far away. “How long?” the psalm asks.How long will prayer echo unanswered?How long will tears be daily bread?How long will we be recognizable only by our wounds? There is no attempt here to sound composed. No effort to tidy the anguish. The psalm gives us permission to say what faith sometimes resists admitting: that there are seasons when God feels hidden, when devotion tastes like saltwater, when survival itself becomes a form of prayer. And yet, woven through the lament is a daring request—not for escape, not for explanation, but for presence. Make your face shine on us. To see the shining face of God is not to leave this world behind. It is to see it illuminated from within. The psalmist does not ask to be removed from suffering so much as to be reoriented by divine attention. Restoration, in this prayer, is not nostalgia. It is not a return to some imagined golden age. It is the courage to believe that renewal can happen here, even now. This is important, because so often we confuse restoration with reversal. We want things to go back—to the way they were before loss, before fracture, before failure. But the psalm knows better. What is broken cannot be rewound. It can only be turned—turned again toward the light. That is what repentance means here: not self-condemnation, but reorientation. Revive us, and we will call on your name.Not “fix ourselves and then come to you,” but “breathe life into us so that we can respond.” The psalm’s final hope is communal. Salvation is not imagined as a private rescue but as a shared renewal. God’s shining face is not hoarded; it is reflected. It passes through human faces—through compassion rekindled, courage restored, communities choosing not to turn away from one another. This is how God’s light enters the world again and again.Not by erasing suffering,but by meeting it with presence. Not by bypassing tears,but by transforming them into prayer. When we ask God to restore us, we are not asking to become who we once were. We are asking to become who love is calling us to be—together. Practice Light a candle, or sit near a window.Let the light fall gently on your face. Breathe in slowly.As you exhale, pray: Restore us. Repeat the prayer, allowing it to widen—from your own heart,to your community,to the world God loves. Prayer Shepherd of weary people,we bring you our longings,our unanswered prayers,our tears that have become daily bread. Turn us again toward your light.Let your face shine upon usuntil hope is rekindled in our midst. Revive us, O God—not for our own sake alone,but so that your lovemay be visible among us. Amen.