Friday, March 29, 2013

the locusts

I heard something yesterday...a sentence. And it's stuck in my head, yall. I can't get it out. It's taken root and it's growing and with it comes hope.

Let me paint a picture first. Imagine a low-tech agrarian society-- it could be one you're imagining from years long past, or the one that still exists in many parts of the world today. A people who solely depend on the land and their crops and animals for survival. A society that will be literally decimated- by hunger, disease, and eventual civil war- if the rains don't come, or the plants don't grow, or anything happens to the crops that provide nourishment, stability, and the hope of a future. Imagine the fear that must come with being so utterly dependent on something you literally have so little control over: I mean, you can plant your seeds and pull the weeds, but if the rain doesn't come, or the birds eat the seed...what're you going to do? This isn't a society that has advanced irrigation or airplanes that can spread fertilizers and pesticides-- this is a people that are utterly at the mercy of the weather and God.

And imagine, if you will, that right when your crops are budding...right as the green sprouts start poking through the black soil, right as hope starts to build that maybe this year there will be plenty. Maybe this year we will have enough to sell, to trade, to build a new barn, to save for the future. And right as the hope starts taking root, the locusts come. They come from the sky, zillions and zillions of them, and they swarm and cover and eat and destroy everything. I don't even understand these plagues of locusts that are not just legend, but a real thing that happened 'back in the day,' and even yesterday, in Madagascar, as this newspaper reported. Can you even imagine the utter despair you would feel as you watch stupid ugly bugs eat your food that you planted, that you worked for...the food that will now not be available for you, your children, and your community?

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I can only imagine how angry, how betrayed, how hopeless I would feel. How could you face the morning, not knowing when the locusts would leave, what you would eat until they did, whether your family would survive? What if you managed to make it through this year and muster up the hope to plant again next year, and then they came back? What a cruel existence. And the sad thing is, it happened. It happens. The locusts came, and they will come, and they will destroy everything.

And I read this yesterday and I can't stop thinking about it:

"I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten..." (Joel 2:25 NIV)

You will what?

"Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten..." (Joel 2:25 NASB)

Come again, now?

"And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten..." (Joel 2:25 KJB) 

He will repay. He will make up. He will restore.

The years of devastation. The years of hunger. The years of hopelessness. The years that the locusts stole...they will be redeemed.

And sometimes I feel hesitant to just pick a random promise or covenant out of the Bible and stake a personal claim on it, you know? Like...okay, so God made that deal with Abraham or whoever. It doesn't necessarily mean he's making the exact same personal pledge to ME, okay?...and so I sometimes don't know where I fall as far as claiming another person's promise from God for myself. And I don't mean that in a hopeless or faithless way, it's just...it just is what it is, for me. 

But what I do feel confident in is this: the character of God. That His character and his heart and his intentions never change. That since the beginning of the world, He has been a God passionately in love with his people, a Creator that is for us. And while we live in the world that He created, we live in a world that is fallen and full of our own free will that doesn't always make the best choices, and it's definitely not always a pretty place. And terrible things happen-- illness, hurts, broken dreams, abandonment, infertility, betrayal. And we wander through years of wondering what happened, why our perfectly-laid plans have been been eaten by the swarms of locusts, and we're scared to plant new hopes lest they fall victim to the locusts again.

But I will restore to you the years the locust has eaten.

That's the heart of our God. He longs to restore to us. To redeem. To repay. He doesn't always stop the plague of locusts. He could. I don't know why He doesn't. But sometimes the locusts still come, and their destruction is vast. And God says I will redeem that. The locusts will not have the final word. Those years will not be forgotten. Our God is so, so good-- and he longs to restore whatever has been stolen from you. 

And I can't get it out of my head. He wants to restore the years that I count as wasted. The years that I've been so anxious to see end, to rip off the last page of the calendar and wad it up and say good riddance to, the ones that have been full of anxiety and tears and broken hopes and struggling faith and absolutely swarming with metaphorical locusts. Those years?

"The LORD says, 'I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts...'" (Joel 2:25 NLT) 

How can I not cling to hope when those words are stuck in my head? I don't know what this redemption, this restoration will look like. It might not look the way I imagined. But He will restore the years the locusts have eaten. And my heart rejoices. 
 

24 comments:

  1. Great, insightful post!

    Also, locusts (both in the literal and metaphorical senses) are stupid.

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  2. I love this! I'm with you in the whole "that promise was for Noah or Hannah or David thing, not me", but I agree that this does reveal a key component of His character, and it's beautiful! He is a God of the redeemed and He is always faithful! Thanks for sharing this!

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  3. Amen! Claim that promise and hold onto it. You are right that God's character does not, has not, and will not change.

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  4. I love seeing and reading of Christians stating what they believing in and all.

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  5. Wow, this is beautiful. I don't think I've heard that verse before, but reading it here brought me some hope, too. Thank you for sharing this! xo

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  6. So well written and so so true. God is faithful from beginning to end, locusts and all.

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  7. I love this. It's a great reminder, too, that the Lord is faithful.

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  8. Beautifully written! Exactly what I needed to hear today. (How do you always do that?!) I love the promise that He will redeem our hopeless situations. Perfectly fitting with Easter tomorrow!
    I've read through Joel before, but completely missed that part so I looked up that passage and in the notes below it reads "The exact meaning of the Hebrew words used here for locusts is uncertain." Interesting... So I took that as a free pass to go ahead and scribble "infertility" next to it in the margin.

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  9. Oh, Erika! This is good. This is so, so good. Praise God for showing this to you!! It really ministered to me - and i always immediately thought of two friends that need to read it - one struggling w/ infertility and one in her marriage. Thanks for posting this. :)

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  10. So beautiful and insightful. Thank you for sharing, especially from such an obscure passage (well, to me - I've never attempted to touch Joel!) God is absolutely faithful and will redeem the pain.

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  11. This is so beautiful, and also reminds me that when Beth Moore mentioned Habakkuk 2:3 on a video the other day, it also made me think of you. Way to go, minor prophets!

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  12. Great post... for some reason I am reminded of the verse in Ephesians about how God is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine. I just think it's cool that He doesn't just fix what's wrong in the end but goes beyond that. Anyway, thankful that He spoke to you through this!

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  13. Erika, such a great post :) Exactly what I needed to hear on Easter weekend.

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  14. Such beautiful words on this pre-Easter Saturday. Words that seared into my brain as well. It brings me great comfort to know that God is wipe away my tears and yours, and restore the years that we feel waiting has stolen from us.

    I love you blog friend!

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  15. I love this post for so many reasons. First of all, I loved that you acknowledged that this promise isn't totally meant for us. Wise perspective. BUT then what you said about God's character...wow. So powerful. I also love those verses and often apply them to my own situation. And as one who is sort of on the other side of infertility (although not really because we're trying for #2), God has without a doubt restored the years the locusts stole from us. My eyes and throat are full of tears right now thinking about it. I might have to steal this concept from you. I can feel a post a-brewing.

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  16. Beautifully written. I love what you connected about Gods character. I will be thinking on this.

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  17. "He will repay. He will make up. He will restore."

    God is so good.

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  18. Oh I love this so much. This is a post I can really relate to. It's not full of empty promises, that God will give us something some day. It is that he will make it all better. Beautifully written.

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  19. this is so good. you made me sniffly.

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  20. I love you! Remember that prayer meeting we lead from Joel 2? We need to reunite soon!!

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  21. Amen!! This is so encouraging and true. Thank you for sharing. I've also been well reminded "being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Everything that He allows is for our good and His glory. And we can rest in knowing that He is doing a good work in us and He WILL finish it someday and not leave us hanging - even when the locusts seem to be coming more often and destroying more than ever. God is still the final word and for that, I'm utterly thankful.

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  22. Ahhhh one of my very favorite verses. (By chance do you have my old Bible? the highlighted and marked up one? Cause you are totally reading from my playbook!)

    God WILL redeem this. I have faith. I've seen it with my own eyes. I've watched it in the infertility world AND the adoption world.

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