Money can be restored. Property can be restored—broken-down cars, stripped painting, old houses, old pictures can now be restored. Relationships can be restored. But there’s one thing that can never be restored is time. Time flies and it does not return. Years pass and we never get them back.
Each new day brings us 24 hours, 1440 minutes, 86,000 seconds, each moment a precious gift from God, each calling for us to be good stewards, mindful that one day we must give an account for how we spent the time God loaned us, how effectively we "bought up" the opportunities He provided. If someone gave us $1440 each day and said spend it or lose it, how fast would we be to comply? Yesterday is but a cancelled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is all of the cash that you have. Spend it wisely.
Lost Years of Our Lives:
What do “lost years” look like for us? Lost years (or locust years) are years that you can’t get back, and they come in many varieties.
Lost years are fruitless years:
A lot of hard work was done in the years the locusts had eaten. After everything was destroyed, the people must have thought, All this work and what do I have to show for it? Some of you know this pain in the world of business—a failed job, a bad investment, a failed marriage, and all the effort that you put in day-by-day, month-by-month, year-by-year led only to massive disappointment. You think, What has come of all my time and all my effort and how can I redeem time that the locust has eaten
Lost years are selfish years:
Years spent wasted on partying and clubbing, building earthly homes but not preparing the out heavenly home then one day, God gets hold of you. And you’re now spiritually awakened. He says to himself, “What in the world have I been doing?” There’s no substance in my life. I really want it to count for Christ. I want to live in the power of the Spirit. I want to make a difference in the world, but the locusts have eaten half of my life! I’ve wasted my years on myself doing nothing, locust years.
Lost years are loveless years:
A division comes to a family, alienating loved ones. Children grow up, and those years cannot be recovered. A marriage quietly endures in which love has been burning low for many years. You see a couple who are really in love, and you say, “I wish I could be loved like that, or I remember when we used to be in love like that, oh if I could just turn back the hand of time how things would be different.” Or maybe you have not yet met the person you would like to meet. It feels like the years are moving on and you are still alone. You can never get them back. The locusts have eaten them.
Lost years are rebellious years:
Perhaps you grew up with many blessings, but in your heart you wanted to rebel. Most of us don’t realize how good we had it when mom and dad was responsible for us. You didn’t fully understand this urge to rebel, but you gave yourself to it. Instead of bringing you pleasure, rebellion brought you pain, much like the Prodigal son you go to the far country in sin until you came to yourself. Now you look back on those years with regret, the years that the locusts have eaten.
Lost years are misdirected years:
The path you chose in your career or at college was a dead end. You just didn’t fit. Often in your mind, and sometimes in your conversation, you say, “How did I end up here? If only. . . . If only I had made that move. . . . If only I had taken that opportunity. . . . If only I had chosen a different path.” But the moment has passed. It’s gone. You can’t go back to it. You’re left with locust years.
Lost years are Christ-less years:
All Christ-less years are locust years. This point is worth thinking about if you have not yet made a commitment to Christ. Ask anyone who came to faith in Christ later in life, and they will tell you that they wish they’d come to Christ sooner than they did: “How much foolishness I would have avoided. How much more good might have been done through my life.”
How God Restores Lost Years:
Take heart! There is hope, because God can restore your lost, locust years. He does so in three ways.
God can restore lost years by deepening your communion with Christ. “You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God” (Joel 2:27). These people, who have endured so much, enjoy a communion with the Lord that is far greater than anything they had ever known before in their religious lives. Christ can restore lost years by deepening your fellowship with him. Ask anyone that God is restoring the fruits of your labor, right deacon Benton, evangelist Evans, minister Matthew, sister Renee, sister McGee, Dr. Pratt, the Henderson, pastor Stevens, pastor Parker, the Jenkins, elder Rosa, Sister Shree, sister Donna, Minister Allen, the Gomez, sister Latisha, minister Wells, mother Willis and Mother Owens, mother Hodges, evangelist Wilson
Why not ask him for this? Tell him, I’m telling Him “Lord, I have spent too many years without you, too many years at a distance from you. Fill my heart with love and gratitude for Christ. Let the loss of these years make my love for You greater than it would ever have been. Restore to me the years the locusts have eaten. “
God can restore lost years by multiplying your fruitfulness. The harvests for these people had been wiped out for four years, but God restored the years that the locusts had eaten by giving an overflowing harvests.
This provision makes me think about the parable where Jesus spoke about a harvest that could be 30-, 60-, or 100-fold. There’s a huge difference between these three harvests. Three years at 100-fold is as much fruit as a decade at 30-fold.
Why not ask him for this? “Lord, the locusts have eaten too many years of our lives. You have called us as your disciples to bear fruit that will last. Too many fruitless years have passed. Now Lord, we ask of you, give us some years now in which more lasting fruit will be born than in all of our formal years of small harvests.”
God can restore lost years by bringing long-term gain from short-term loss. The effect of these great trials in your life will be that God can restore to you everything that you thought was lost because of time, God can give you double in the time you have left so much that you won’t miss what was lost in the time you wasted. We should praise God for that (1 Peter 1:7). The praise, glory, and honor go to Christ because his power guarded you and kept you through the hardest years of your life.
Thinking about “years that the locust has eaten,” years that have been taken, I think of something Isaiah said about our Lord Jesus: “He was cut off out of the land of the living”.
Here was the Lord Jesus in the prime of life. He was three years into his ministry at 33 years old. You would think that a man launching a new enterprise at the age of 33 has everything in front of him. But Isaiah says, “He was cut off.” He was cut off because he came under the judgment of God, not for his own sins—because he had none—but for ours. It’s for that reason He came, and I want us to know the sacrifice that was made because of our locust years.
Our sins, our grief, our sorrows, were laid on Him. Our judgment fell on Him. Our locusts swarmed all over Him. The life of God’s tender shoot was “cut off.” Then, on the third day, I need somebody to say “on the third day” the Son of God rose in the power of an eternal life. He offers himself to you, and he says what no one else can ever say: “I will restore the years that the locusts have eaten.” Everything that the devil stole from you, your joy, your peace, your children, your health, your finances, your marriage, your love. God said I will restore. Watch this (And my people shall never be ashamed)
