“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” Joel 2:25
Here are two more types of “lost” years:
3. Selfish years
Imagine a person, let’s call him Jim, who made a commitment to Christ but it didn’t run deep. Faith in Jesus was only a slice of the big pie of his busy life, filled with all the things that Jim wanted to pursue.
Then one day, God gets hold of Jim. He is spiritually awakened. He looks at his life and he says, “This whole thing has been about me.” Now that he is awakened, he sees what other people are doing to love and to sacrifice for the sake of Christ.
He says to himself, What in the world have I been doing? My life has no substance! I really want to count for Christ and live in the power of the Spirit. I want to make a difference in the world, but the locusts have eaten half my life! I’ve wasted my years on myself.
4. Loveless years
A division comes to a family and there is alienation from a loved one. Years are lost. Children grow up. And what might have been cannot be recovered.
Or maybe you know what it is to quietly endure a marriage in which love has been burning low for many years. You see a couple who are really in love and you think, I wish I could be loved like that. You can’t get those years back, and it feels like the locusts have eaten them.
Or you have not yet met the person that you would like to meet. And it feels like the years are moving on. You can never get them back; the locusts have eaten them.
What do you know about selfish or loveless years?
