From Civil Engr Juan Garza
"I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten."
Joel 2:25 (NIV)
Friend, can we talk about the word years in this
verse?
Not days. Not weeks. Not a hard season that
lasted a few months. Years. God is speaking to
people who have watched locusts strip everything
- crops, livelihood, hope - year after year after
year. And into that accumulated, compounded,
seemingly irreversible loss, He speaks one of the
most extraordinary promises in all of Scripture.
I will repay you.
"God does not promise to stop the locusts. He
promises to repay what they took. He is not just a
God who ends the loss - He is a God who
restores it. Every year of it."
So many of us are carrying a loss that is measured
not in days but in years. Years of a marriage that
was slowly consumed by something neither
person knew how to stop. Years of a health battle
that took more than a body - it took time, dreams,
plans, the version of life that was supposed to
happen. Years spent in a career that turned out to
be a dead end. Years raising a child who walked
away. Years of financial struggle that never
seemed to turn the corner. And the accumulation
of those years can start to feel like too much even
for God to reach. Too much lost. Too much time
gone. Too far behind to ever catch up.
But Joel 2:25 speaks directly into that
accumulated loss. The word repay in the original
Hebrew is the word shalam - the root of the word
shalom. It means to make whole. To complete. To
restore to a state of wholeness and peace. God is
not just going to give something back. He is going
to make things whole again. The years the locusts
consumed - the time, the opportunity, the joy, the
relationships, the health - God says He is going to
restore it to a place of completeness that the loss
never fully destroyed.
"The God who made time is not limited by time.
He can do more in one season of restoration than
the locusts stole across many years. That is not
math - that is a miracle."
And here it what is so stunning about this
promise. God takes personal responsibility for the
repayment. Not - the situation will improve. Not -
things will work out eventually. I will repay. God
Himself is the guarantor of the restoration. He is
putting His name on it. The years are not lost
forever. They are on a ledger that God has
promised to settle. And when God settles a debt,
He does not settle it minimally. He settles it with
abundance.
The lost years are not gone forever.
They are on God's ledger. And He has promised to repay.
Not partially. Not eventually maybe.
I WILL REPAY. HIS WORDS. HIS PROMISE. HIS NAME ON IT.
PRAYER:
Lord, we bring You the years. The ones the locusts
consumed. The time we cannot get back, the dreams
that were stripped away, the losses that
accumulated until they felt permanent. We trust
Your promise today. You are the God who repays.
Who restores. Who makes whole what was
broken. We do not know how You will do it. We just
trust that You will. Lord God Almighty we pray in
the Mighty Name of Your Son Jesus Christ, Amen.
