I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten. (Joel 2:25)
Some people say, “I have no regrets,” but I wonder if they are fooling themselves. We all have regrets. We would all like a do-over for some event or interaction. We all have years like Joel 2:25 refers to—the years of the locust—in which it seems as though forces outside us swarm in to chew through everything we’ve done, or where our own decisions acted as the “locusts” of failure, heartache, and broken relationships.
Sometimes, I wouldn’t mind the chance that young Michael J. Fox’s character got in Back to the Future: the opportunity to use Doc’s flux capacitor to take a sports car back in time and try to change things. I would go back and reverse my “years of the locust” if I could. I’ve been waiting since the 1980s for the time machine to be invented, but so far, no such luck.
Instead, God takes us back to our future, where he knows all things will change. He’s in the process of changing everything: “I will pour out my Spirit on all people” (v. 28). He’s up to something. The “Year of the Lord” is what the prophets called it. God makes it clear: the year of the Lord will outweigh our years of the locust, and even “your old men will dream dreams” (v. 28).
Forget the years of the locust and dream dreams again!
PS—This week’s Scriptures follow the Daily Bible Readings in Wesley Bible Lesson Commentary, Volume 7, page 66.
David Drury is a multivocational second-chair leader, org founder, church planter, author, researcher for author Max Lucado, and previous chief of staff for The Wesleyan Church headquarters.
© 2021 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
