Redeeming The Years The Locusts Have Eaten: Joel 2:25
Joel 2:25 – “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, My great army which I sent among you.”
The prophet Joel paints a pretty devastating picture. An army of locusts, wave after wave, had devoured Israel’s land until nothing remained but desolation. This was no ordinary disaster—it was God’s appointed judgment, His way of calling His people back to Himself.
Long before this moment, God had spoken through Moses that if Israel turned away from Him and broke covenant, curses would come upon the land. Among those warnings were plagues of locusts that would strip the fields bare (see Deuteronomy 28:38, 42).
Now, in Joel’s day, those very covenant curses had fallen. The land was stripped bare. The harvest was gone. The future looked hopeless.
Yet into that hopelessness, God spoke a word of stunning grace: “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” Notice He doesn’t just promise new crops, but years. The time that seemed wasted, unredeemable, swallowed up by devastation—God Himself pledged to restore. That is the character of our God. Judgment and hard times may come, sometimes as discipline, sometimes as trials, sometimes in ways we cannot explain on this side of eternity. But behind even the hardest seasons beats the heart of a God who is good, kind, and committed to His people.
And here is where the gospel shines all the brighter: Christ Himself bore the covenant curse so that we might inherit the covenant blessing. Paul writes in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’” On the cross, Jesus took upon Himself the devastation of sin, the wasted years, the barren fields of our rebellion. In His resurrection, He brought forth the promise of restoration, not just for Israel’s land, but for every believer’s life. What Joel foreshadowed—years restored, hope renewed, blessing multiplied—finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
I have seen this promise play out in my own life. There were years that felt devoured by setback after setback, multiple traumatic brain injuries, rare diagnoses, and chronic invisible illnesses. At times, I wondered if those seasons meant my story was over. What I once thought was wasted beyond repair, God has breathed new life into. He has placed me on a new path, brought me into a new family, given me new skills, and a new purpose. Through the resurrection power of Jesus, what seemed dead has been raised to life. Truly, He has restored to me the years the locust had eaten, immeasurably more than I could have ever imagined.
- For the one who comes to Christ later in life and mourns the “wasted years” of not knowing Him, God restores by bringing joy, fruitfulness, and blessings in the years that remain.
- For the one who battles cancer or illness and feels their life has been swallowed up, God restores, even if the healing comes not in this life but through the eternal life He gives in His presence.
- For the one in the midst of grief, loss, or devastation, God restores by bringing His peace, His presence, and His hope into places that once seemed barren.
This is the gospel: through Jesus Christ, dead things live again, broken things are made whole, and wasted years are redeemed.So now, in a new season where I see the locusts devouring, I remind myself of this promise. God is working, even in the ruins. He will restore. Maybe not in the way I expect, maybe not in the timing I would choose, but in ways that one day will make me say, “It was worth it all.”
Friend, take heart. The locusts do not get the last word. God does. And His word is one of restoration, resurrection, and hope.