Hey Church!

Last Sunday we closed the service with a song called “Your Nature” by Kari Jobe and it has been stuck in my head ever since. The lyrics are full of hope in the God who brings life out of death. But one line always strikes a particularly resonant chord with me: “You will restore the years that shame has stolen.” The idea is that whatever years of loss we have endured, not one of them will be wasted, but all will be used to bear abundant fruit in and through us. Every dark moment will be turned into a radiant blessing because “it’s [God’s] nature” to do so.  

In the days of the prophet Joel, a plague of locusts had utterly devastated the land. The prophet uses that force of nature to foretell of an even more disastrous day of judgment to come for the people of Israel: turn to Yahweh and repent, for the day of His wrath is coming. The unrelenting onslaught of locusts is likened to the day when Yahweh will come to judge the unrepentant. 

After establishing that foreboding scene, the Lord speaks through Joel to once again extend the opportunity to be reconciled to Himself. Even while His wrath is brewing like a storm on the horizon, God remembers mercy and cries out to His people, 

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
and rend your hearts and not your garments.”
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.
(Joel 2:12-13)

Only a few verses later, Joel reports that Yahweh takes pity on His people and issues promises of prosperity. 

“Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied… I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten…” (Joel 2:19, 24a)

What are your “locust years”? Years of pain or unbelief? Have your children been wayward, with no apparent hope of return? Have you walked through valleyes of spiritual-emotional drought or barrenness? Whatever your years of devastation, disappointment, or emptiness, it is not only in God’s plans but even in His nature to restore what you have lost–and to such a magnanimous degree that you will be fully satisfied in His provision. 

Over the weekend, identify those “locust years” in your life. Go to God in prayer and tell Him honestly what that season has been like for you, along with what you feel you have lost along the way. Ask Him to draw close and quiet you with His love (Zeph. 3:17). Ask also for faith to trust that He has His glory and your good at heart, especially in those seasons when the locust swarms darken the sky and blind you to His purposes. And, finally, wrap up your time of prayer with the words of Psalm 42.  

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
    so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
    for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?

My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”

These things I remember,
    as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
    and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
    a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation and my God.

My soul is cast down within me;
    therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
    from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
    at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
    have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
    and at night his song is with me,
    a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock:
    “Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
    because of the oppression of the enemy?”
As with a deadly wound in my bones,
    my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
    “Where is your God?”

Why are you cast down, O my soul,
    and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
    my salvation and my God.