“I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” Joel 2:25
I love this promise of God. As I approach the half century mark, I am mindful that these precious years of life go by all too quickly.
The theme of my 31-day challenge is, ‘31 days to the writing habit.’ I chose it not because I have time to write but because I really wanted to start writing again — to pursue a lifelong desire and dream.
I started writing in earnest two and half years ago when I joined a writer’s guild. But that came to a screeching halt a year later when the pain in my heart and the brokenness of my life overwhelmed me. Yes, I wrote in my journal as I’ve done most of my life but it was nothing I could share with the world.
Many times I’ve wondered why I didn’t start sooner — like 10 years ago or even much sooner. I’ve known that I wanted to write, to create ever since I was a child. While I would have gladly studied literature or creative writing in college, I chose journalism as a practical option to appease my parents.
After college, I began my career as an editorial assistant for a magazine in Washington D.C., but I never did make it far beyond that. Yet the desire to write has always lingered in the background and I’ve thought and thought of it.
But why didn’t I write?
Fear. Looking back I can see how I did not believe my dream was worth pursuing. I was too afraid. Afraid that my beautiful dream of being a writer would be exposed because it would soon be evident I couldn’t really write.
Fear has a way of stopping you like that — it locks you in an invisible cage that keeps you from doing the very thing God created you for. And so as I look back on all the years, the decades, when I didn’t write — I see them as the years the locust of fear devoured.
How about you — what have the locust taken from you? Maybe it’s a dream like mine or maybe something far more precious. Whatever it is, will you believe God to restore it?
God’s Word says He will restore the years the locust have eaten.
Jesus said, “ask and it will be given to you.” Maybe we can start with that — simply asking God to restore what the enemy has stolen from us. Then, let’s believe that He will.
Remember Job? The enemy took everything from him but God’s Word says that Job’s later life was more blessed than the first part.
It’s our Father’s desire to restore us — to redeem what we’ve lost. On the cross, Jesus paid the greatest price of all so that we can be set free. Free from the bondage of sin, free from our cage of fear and whatever else is holding us back. He did that to restore us in the deepest way — to make us children of God.
Friend, I pray that today will be day when you begin to run with your dream and give it all you’ve got. You were created for it.
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