And 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.
Joel 2:25

Recently, I have been thinking about some of the things that the enemy has robbed from me during my lifetime and even before I was born. He stole a lot from me to include family members. I thought of a scenario that set my family on a certain course, an incident that happened before I was born. I wondered how my life and the lives of my family members would have been different if this event had not occurred?

Yes, the human side of me drifts back into time on occasions and wonder, “What if?” However, I try not to live in that state of mind, or ponder on the robbery too long. Meditating on loss too long can cause anger, disappointment and pain to surface. I admit, I “do” have a human side. Instead of giving way to anger or disappointment, I try to immediately replace any negative emotions with God’s promises like the one He made to the nation of Israel in Joel chapter 2 quoted above.

God promised that He would restore the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust have devoured (NKJV).

I questioned why God stated what seemed to be different destroying insects. After doing some research, I came to realize that God was only talking about one kind of insect, but in different stages of development. Although, each stage of the insect is harmful, it harms in different ways depending on the stage of maturity.

First stated is the locust, a large grasshopper-like insect (the mature insect) with strong flight wings. It is able to fly (swarm) around while destroying and devouring.

Second, the caterpillar, the larva or immature stage of the locust is able to crawl. It crawls around devouring. As it relates to our lives, the caterpillar sneaks into our lives, lying low, crawls into our lives unaware and devours our possessions secretly and often unnoticed.

Third, the cankerworm, the wingless insect (still immature) consumes much like gangrene. It’s infectious. The cankerworm destroys the very life source of a thing, such as, the buds and leaves on trees. It doesn’t have to be everywhere to totally destroy us. For example, if it bites our finger, the infection will invade our circulatory system, which means, it will permeate throughout the body, consuming our lives as it spreads.

Fourth, the palmerworm, also known as the pilgrim-worm, is the wandering and traveling stage of the locust. These migratory pests, travel in large numbers chewing and destroying. When the palmerworms come into our lives, they come in multiple groups so they can attack from every side. Their goal is to take us out!

Thank God, the locust doesn’t come every year, but when they come, they do great harm. The locust years, which the Lord mentions, literally means, “the years of hardship and poverty.”

Even though, we will experience locust years, the Lord has promised to repay or restore our possessions that were devoured by the caterpillar; to revitalize the life that was consumed by the cankerworm; to replace everything that the palmerworm chewed away, and to give us back the years that we struggled and suffered because of lack and hardship.

The thing I like about God’s payback is that He uses the multiplication system. He doesn’t just merely give us back what was stolen; He multiples it! He restores by making improvements on what we previously had or He increases the numbers.

If you need further proof, just ask brother Job, “How did God repay you for all your calamity?” He will tell you, “And the Lord restored [my] losses when [I] prayed for [my] friends. Indeed the Lord gave [me] twice as much as [I] had before.” (Emphasis mine. See Job 42:10 NKJV.)

Declare…

Hallelujah! My God is a restoring God! I will make this a daily confession in my life.

Posted by on Wednesday, September 6th, 2017 @ 12:17AM
Categories: Inspirational