During a time when Andrew and I were desperately needing help in our marriage and asking God to make it into something beautiful again, I came across a verse in the book of Joel that caught my attention.
“I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten.” I mulled the words over for a while and then took them to Andrew.
“I want to work on repairing our marriage like you asked. I want God to restore to us the years that the locusts have eaten.”
His face lit up. He had been waiting for me to truly get on board. I had thought the problem was him. Now I was willing to admit that I was to blame too. We talked about the promise and beauty of restoration and how much we wanted it to be true in our home.
The verse stuck. As time passed, we rejoiced again and again as we watched God work in our lives, both personally and maritally, bringing fresh green growth to our relationship, and helping us to identify the areas where the locusts still needed to be exterminated. He was keeping his promise. And answering our prayers.
I’ve been thinking about those locusts again today, so I looked up that verse in Joel 2. I was surprised at what I found that I hadn’t noticed the last time I read it. In the NKJV it reads as such.
“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust…” There’s more but I’ll get to that…
It seems the locusts come in different forms, doing various amounts of damage in my life.
Sometimes I have a day like yesterday when, instead of buckling down and writing the hard stuff like I know God wants me to, I work on fleshing out the fiction story I want to write instead. It is easier and I tend to enjoy an easy road. At the end of the day, though, I have wasted an opportunity to walk in obedience to the Lord. The locusts have come and nibbled up a few hours, or maybe a day. Was it a crawling locust? I repent and ask God to restore those hours that the locust took from him and me.
Next, I think of the situations in my life that cause me unrest. I feel an uneasiness under the surface, worrying that things are not going as I’d hoped. What if God doesn’t come through for me? All the “what if’s” and “if only’s” that play and replay in my mind are like the chewing locust, who slowly but surely gnaws away, eating up my thoughts, working on my emotional health until I am no longer walking in faith and trust. This locust, too, has hindered me from enjoying my relationship with God. I can’t rejoice in his goodness if I am worrying that he is going to drop the ball. That he isn’t in control after all.
Maybe the hardest, and certainly the most shocking and shattering are the times when adversity hits you out of the blue. I remember the days, several years ago, when suddenly there was no work in our future, and we struggled to make sense of our reality, both financially and spiritually. We never saw it coming and were suddenly in a place where, when we looked up, we could not see the sun through the cloud of locusts that were swarming us. We stumbled around in the gray, shadowy light, begging God to show us what we had done wrong, and what he was up to.
And in that darkness and confusion, I found that the locusts were in danger of consuming me. They surely wanted to, buzzing in my ears, crawling on my skin, chomping and gnawing all around me, trying to keep me in a panic. And they wanted me to forget about my Father.
God is faithful though. He called to me through that awful darkness and confusion, and I learned to hear his voice in a way I had not known before. I also found that trust and a belief in the never-failing goodness of God were crucial in not letting the locusts consume me.
Maybe you have faced some of the situations I mentioned above. Maybe you haven’t. What I do know is that you have most certainly dealt with situations in life where you have experienced locusts in one way or another. It is part of the broken world we live in. And those pesky creatures will nibble, gnaw, swarm, and consume you if you let them.
But we have a God that is so much bigger than the locusts. And as we recognize their presence, he helps us to eradicate them, restoring the damage they have done.
I said there was more, and it is the best part!
“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God… my people shall never be put to shame… then you shall know that I am in the midst… I am the Lord your God.”
We have a God that is so much bigger than the locusts! As we recognize their presence, he helps us to eradicate them. He rolls the shame of the damage they have done off our shoulders, satisfying our souls as he sits down beside us, and says “I am the Lord… YOUR God.”
No matter how much or little the locusts have eaten in your life, all is not lost. Your God loves to restore you!
Will you join me in a shout of heart-felt praise?!