LOCUST YEARS

Where has the locust devoured your fruit when you look over your life? What years have been lost, never to be lived again? Locust years are spans of time that have been wasted, dried up, and desolate; time spent apart from God. It’s making choices in your life that lead to nowhere, it’s giving yourself over to a rebellious life, doing what you know isn’t right. The Book of Joel, in the Bible, gives us a very descriptive picture of what locust years look like. One thing is for sure, time is one thing we can never get back! You cannot live over what is lost.

I look back on my life and discover spans of time that the locust has eaten; time that in my young adult life was lived in rebellion to the way and truth in which I was raised. I had received Christ into my life at the age of twelve but by my senior year in high school, the locust came. I regret much of what I did then and through much of my college years and I am saddened at the thought of how much time I had wasted in light of what I now know. However, in Joel 2:25 God makes an astounding promise. He says that if we, who recognize our need for God’s mercy, return to a life with God as our focus, and with a heart to see God’s name honored, then He would “restore to us the years that the locust has eaten.” Only God can do this! How? He does it by deepening our communion and fellowship with Jesus Christ. He does it by multiplying our fruitfulness. Charles Spurgeon once said, “God can do more in a year or day than we could ever do together in a lifetime.” He can do this! Why would we not ask God to do this for us?

Are you feeling stuck in a dead-end life – a life that is going nowhere and producing nothing good? Do you feel like life is just passing you by? Then go to the One who can turn it all around and restore to you a life that overflows with fruit! Go to Jesus!