Restoring What the Locust has Eaten
I have never been in an all out locust invasion, but it is devastating. Joel was inspired by God to use a locust invasion as a symbol of what the Babylonian army would do to Judah and Jerusalem, total destruction. The locust lives in several phases of life, and in each phase he eats up everything around him until it is all gone. Nothing alive is left. However, God can restore what the locust have eaten, what the army has destroyed.(Joel 2:25) He can restore the "years" eaten up by the succeeding generations of the locusts in the land. I believe there are many people who need to have this type of restoration, because their lives are devastated.
Sin devastates our lives. God must punish sin, and so if we continue in sin, He continues to send the swarms of locusts until all is destroyed. Some call this coming to the and of our rope. Joel called it looking out on a sea of nothing. Where do we go then? There is only one viable choice. We must sincerely repent of our sins and cry out to the Lord to forgive and to restore. That is what Joel told the people of his day to do, and the process is still the same today. The restoration will not come until the repentance and returning to Him are complete.
However, since God sends the armies of locusts against us, He knows how to restore the years they eat. He can make our lives so abundant that we can't even tell there was a problem before. The word picture is looking out on green trees full of fruit and fields of crops with no sign of the locusts. God is able to do that, if we are willing to trust Him and Him alone, in repentance and confession. I pray that each of us who needs restoration will seek the Lord who loves us so much and who wants to bless us abundantly.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Joel 1 and Amos 1-2.
Sin devastates our lives. God must punish sin, and so if we continue in sin, He continues to send the swarms of locusts until all is destroyed. Some call this coming to the and of our rope. Joel called it looking out on a sea of nothing. Where do we go then? There is only one viable choice. We must sincerely repent of our sins and cry out to the Lord to forgive and to restore. That is what Joel told the people of his day to do, and the process is still the same today. The restoration will not come until the repentance and returning to Him are complete.
However, since God sends the armies of locusts against us, He knows how to restore the years they eat. He can make our lives so abundant that we can't even tell there was a problem before. The word picture is looking out on green trees full of fruit and fields of crops with no sign of the locusts. God is able to do that, if we are willing to trust Him and Him alone, in repentance and confession. I pray that each of us who needs restoration will seek the Lord who loves us so much and who wants to bless us abundantly.
Tomorrow, I intend to read Joel 1 and Amos 1-2.