I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten. (Joel 2:25)
SOME 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—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.
I wouldn’t mind the chance 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 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!
David Drury is the author of Being Dad and coauthor of SoulShift and Ageless Faith (all Wesleyan Publishing House). He is also the chief of staff of The Wesleyan Church.
