Years Wasted

God does promise to restore the fruits of our wasted years by our repentance and His magnanimous grace. The locusts did NOT eat our years, the locusts ate the fruit of our years. “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” Joel 2:25. May this truth not be a stranger to those who are filled with regret. The years we waste on selfish pleasures can never be restored. The clock keeps ticking, we work, age, and die and the time alotted to us; once passed is gone forever. A rain cloud once emptied, does not refill. The river that rushed onward to the sea cannot roll back to whence it came. Our years once gone can never be restored to us, but the trumpet has not sounded yet, and fresh fruit is just one season ahead. May the seed of greater grace bloom in every willing heart.

Our good, good Father promises to restore the potential fruit yet to bloom. God earnestly desires to restore the lost blessings of the unripened fruit of His Spirit. Our regrets can instantly MORF from mourning to rejoicing. Our wasted years may yet be restored by our humble repentance. It is a pity that they were locust-eaten by our folly and negligence, but be not hopeless concerning them. All things are possible to him that believeth in God at His Word. Have faith in His power which is beyond all things as He can work great marvels with those who yield. No man can make the locust restore what it devoured. No artificial intellect can recover what has been utterly destroyed. God alone can do what seems impossible. The promise of His grace is poured out upon His repentant people.

He can produce a larger harvest than a neglected land could naturally yield. God can give us larger grace in our present and in our future. What has been festering in sin can be healed, blessed and useful to His praise and glory. It is a great mystery but Jehovah is a God of wonders and in the kingdom of His grace miracles are common things. To the empty soul who has done nothing for God, the prospect of recovering the wreckage of a wasted life, bursts with hope. An unrepentant heart is mostly full of self sufficiency and unbelief. Yet the King holds out His sceptor of grace to all. All are quickly restored by a humble cry for help direct to His mercy seat. The truth is that without Christ in us, a soul remains empty and unfulfilled. Regardless of how many years passed in the horrible state of pride or selfishness, there is hope. God persistently pursues the discontented, the hoarders of things, the wretched, distracted, the self deceived. He is slow to anger and most gracious with all of us. All Hope is found in the resurrecting blood of Jesus. Even if our number of selfish years reached 20, 30, 40, or 50 years — we still can be useful to God’s kingdom. Our many years of graceless locust eaten fruits can be changed by our Waymaking, Miracle working Father. How He must weep over the aged and unsaved. As a result of being a slave to the many lusts of the flesh, many have worked, ploughed, sowed and watched their crops pile up and rot. Their years of toil and striving yields zip. For the yoke of the world is NOT easy and its burden is NOT light.

In the end, they look back and weep as nothing everlasting comes of it. Bitterness grinds away any fleeting joy. One does not mind working where there is good reward for it but to plough and sow and then to reap nothing is misery. The wage sweetens the toil but when the wage is death the toil is horrible. The way of unregenerate souls is to spend years in rebelling and resisting help from God. They toil under the impulse of a strong desire and then that dream perishes. They work, but labor in vain with grave disappointment. Easily charmed by the father of all lies, the prospect of contentment is never reached.

A little more but the heart remains discontent. The student must know a little more. The ambitious must climb a little higher upon the ladder of honour. After reaching fame, it fades rapidly and the ease is still as distant as ever. The world’s cups are insatiable as craving more continues. A striving after the wind with a million in bank at death. All accumulated but made no everlasting use of it whatsoever. The ungodly have zero faith in Christ. They will hoard all kinds of treasures and trash and hide them in a hole. The misers, what can be the difference between a 1,000 dollars or a 1,000 needles, since they use neither? Alas, many have the power to get but do not have the faculty to use what they have gotten. Their years are eaten with the locust. Souls teavel to and fro, globe trotting for treasures on earth. Like clouds without rain, wells without water, created by God, but vacant and wanting more. Decent and respectable, quiet souls that soak in much like a sponge. Squeezed, and dried up over time, without the water of the Holy Spirit they harden and rot. God is not glorified. Broken hearts are not healed. Holiness is not extended. What an awful legacy for a soul to have lived to be 65 and to have done nothing for God. He does not spare a fruitless tree which year after year has brought forth nothing. The justice of His verdict to cut it down by a swift blow of the axe.

Respond to God’s grace and confess your sin. Submit your whole body, mind, soul to God and He will restore the years which the locusts have eaten. Hear His call, His faithful, marvelous promise.