What has been taken from you? What have you lost? Where are you hurting? This space in your life is an invitation for God’s presence as you have never known before. Now, you will be restored.



Joel 2:25 “The LORD says, “I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts.”



Locusts are insects much like a grasshopper which bring great destruction. They show up in masses and consume all that is living. In this scripture God is speaking to his people who had just endured years of hardship. Years of loss. Years of destruction. Now he is saying, I’m here to give back to you what you lost.



Four kinds of locusts are mentioned. The swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts and the cutting locusts. I wonder, what has swarmed and overwhelmed you? What has hopped in and walked all over you? What has stripped you of your confidence and your peace? What has cut you deep and left you wounded? This is your locust.



Whatever loss it has caused will now be repaid. Whatever hard times you have endured, good times will be multiplied. If you will remain faithful, if you will continue to trust in God, he will right every wrong in your life. He will bring it full circle. You may not know how and you will not know when, but he will work on your behalf and make it so.



Do you believe that?



What have you lost? How many years have you spent hurting or stressing over that which has happened to you? I assure you, it has not slipped by God without his notice. He has not been amiss in your pain. He has not been absent in your suffering. He knows it all. He has seen it all. He has heard you. And through it all he has had a plan to restore you. A plan to rebuild you. A plan to take all that isn’t right, and make it right. More than right.



Will you let God do that in your life? That’s a genuine question, because often after a season of destruction, we lose our trust. We become jaded and cynical. We’re just waiting for the next thing to fall apart, the next thing to go wrong, the next delivery of bad news. Expecting it. Accepting it. Believing that life is against us and God has forsaken us.



But a new season is here. A season of the tables turning and wrongs being made right. A season of restoring that which was lost. A season of repayment. Oh yes, repayment!



But understand, you’re not the one getting anyone back. God’s not calling you to get back at those who hurt you. It’s not ‘get even’ time. It’s restoration time.



For restoration to fully take place we have to stop replaying the story in our head of how bad it was. How wrong they were. How innocent you were. Will you release that story for an opportunity to live a new story? A story of wholeness? A story of purpose? Will you let God do the repaying and you do the releasing?



You must quit tearing down that which God is now ready to restore. You are being restored.



Various translations of this scripture say “I will repay you, I will restore you, I will give you back, I will make up to you what you have lost, what has been devoured, that which has consumed you.” Oh there it is … that which has consumed you.



Have you ever been consumed with something? Something that has taken your peace, filled your thoughts, plagued your happiness, and seeped it’s way into every corner of your heart and mind? I certainly have been. I’ve been consumed. I’ve been hurt to the point of believing it would never be okay again. And I was wrong.