With all that is happening in our world, it is easy to be discouraged. Warren Cole Smith and John Stonestreet wrote their book, Restoring All Things, to encourage you and show how God and His people are engaged in fulfilling His promise to restore all things. Restoring is just one of the “re” words that John Stonestreet talks about. There are other words like redemption, reconciliation, and resurrection along with renew, repent, and restore. When he was on my radio program, he talked about the feeling we may have that Christians are on the wrong side of history, especially when it comes to issues like homosexuality. He acknowledges that it is easy to confuse this cultural moment with what is the ultimate story of the world. God is still in control. The church and the gospel message have the answers to the social problems we face. In the area of poverty, government has spent trillions and 50 years later still has not won the war on poverty because it focused on the wrong problems. John Stonestreet in his National Review essay says that “it was like trying to win a football game by defending the other team’s cheerleaders.” On the issue of abortion, we should be encouraged and use the pro-life success as a model for addressing other social issues. Look at the success of the pregnancy care movement and innovative programs like “Save the Storks.” He also talked about the power of cultural imagination. While more than two dozen states were passing marriage amendments defining marriage, the number one TV show was “Will & Grace.” It did more to change minds about homosexuality than many of these political successes. Politics is downstream from culture. America’s prison system is also broken. The goal seems to merely get bad people off the streets. It doesn’t seem dedicated to putting good people back into society. That is why he encouraged our listeners to learn more about restorative justice by visiting the websites of Prison Fellowship and Justice Fellowship. If you want to be encouraged, you need to read about how God is “restoring all things.”