….what the locust have eaten……

“Therefore, say to the people of Israel: ‘I am the LORD.  I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt.  I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment.”   Ex. 6:6 NLT

In Joel’s day a devastating plague of locusts devoured Israel’s crops.   Yet, the Lord called that multiplied swarm: “My great army which I sent among you” (Joel 2:25).

Lord, teach me the lesson of the locusts and let me learn that You are the God of devastation, too”. 

Life is full of irreversible times.  The crop that the locusts devoured was a lost crop. The year of the lost crops was a lost year.   The months that the prodigal spent in the far country were lost months.  Israel’s forty years in the wilderness were lost years and the generation that died there was a lost generation.

So many people have made “lost” decision, like the person who refused to answer the call of God on their life, who refused the call for missions, married the wrong spouse, followed the wrong career, lived a life consumed with additions or a life that was filled with bitterness, hatred, control/manipulation, anger and/or jealousy . 

Lord, have You anything to say to them?  “I will restore the years that the locust hath eaten” (Joel 2:25 KJV).  But how?  Time!

The next year the seed was planted and the harvest was reaped!  In one year God wiped out every trace of the locust.  Just to mention a few times Jesus reversed times in people’s lives, He reversed the process of leprosy in the leper, the sin of Zaccheus, the death of Lazaraus and He made time fly backward when He made Naaman’s flesh like a child’s. 

The reversible becomes reversed in His hands and we eat what the locust cannot touch.

“He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
He redeems me from death
and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
 He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!”  Psalm 103:3-5 NLT