Lost Years

Have you ever looked back over a season of your life and thought, “What happened to all those years?” The years the pain took. The years the mistakes took. The years other people took from you. Joel 2:25, God says, “I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten.”

Friend, that is one of the most hope-filled promises in all of Scripture! Notice what God does not say. He doesn’t say, “I’ll give you back the exact same years.” Time doesn’t rewind. But He does say He will restore. And when God restores, He doesn’t just bring you back to where you were or restore what was....He brings you forward to something better, deeper, and more fruitful.

You say, “But Lon, you don’t understand what I’ve lost.” Folks, we have all lost things, jobs, relationships. God knows all this. And He is not limited by our past sin and mistakes or what others have done to us.

Our God is a Redeemer. That means He takes what is broken and wasted and turns it into something that carries eternal value.

Joseph lost years in a prison. David lost years running for his life. Naomi lost years in grief. Yet in every case, God wove those “lost years” into a greater story for His glory and their good. 

So, what can we do? We can stop living in regret. We can stop rehearsing the past. And we can start trusting God who promises restoration. When we put our faith and trust in the Lord, there are no wasted years only years God is preparing to redeem.

The locusts don’t get the final word. God does.