Joel 2:25-26

25 I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the great locust, the grasshopper, and the caterpillar, my great army, which I sent among you.

26 You will have plenty to eat, and be satisfied, and will praise the name of Yahweh, your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and my people will never again be disappointed.

World English Bible, public domain

Locusts eat a harvest, and then the lost years are given back. That is the picture at the center of Joel 2:25-26. Whole seasons were stripped bare, and these words were spoken to a hungry people: what was eaten would be made good.

The book of Joel opens with a land in ruin. Swarm after swarm of locusts has gone through the fields, the vines and the fig trees, and the people of Judah have watched their food and their livelihood disappear. Into that loss, the prophet speaks of God promising to “restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten” (Joel 2:25). The next verse pictures full tables again, people who eat and feel satisfied, and praise where there had been grief.

Notice what the passage does not say. It does not pretend the locusts never came, or that the hard years were secretly fine. It names the damage plainly, one insect after another. Restoration here begins with an honest account of what was lost. That can be a useful place to start if you are writing about your own lean years. Maybe it was a long illness, a job that drained you, a relationship that took more than it gave, or a stretch when you could not find your footing.

Picture someone whose garden is flattened by a hailstorm in early summer. A week later you might find them on their knees in the mud, pulling out broken stems and setting in new seedlings. The tomatoes will be late this year, and some rows will stay bare. But green comes back slowly, and by autumn there is something to pick. Restoration often looks like that. It is not a reset button. It is patient replanting, and a harvest that arrives on its own schedule and is still worth having.

You do not need to settle what you believe about the God of Joel to sit with this passage. You can come to it as someone who knows what it is to lose time and who wonders whether anything can grow there again. Writing that question down can be a beginning in itself. If you pray, this passage can become a prayer that is honest about the locust years and open to what might still grow.

Before you write

Start by naming one locust year in a single plain sentence, before you look at any prompt. Then choose the prompt below that sits closest to that sentence, and write until your hand slows. A page that stays mostly empty is fine, because clearing a row is part of replanting too. For more prompts along these lines, you can visit the healing prompt theme.

Journal prompts

  1. The passage names four kinds of locust, one after another. What has eaten away at a season of your life, and can you name it just as plainly?

  2. Write about a year or a stretch of time you think of as lost. What did it cost you, and what, if anything, quietly survived it?

  3. Joel pictures people who eat and are satisfied. What would 'enough' look like for you right now, in ordinary terms?

  4. Remember a time something in your life came back slowly after damage, such as a friendship, your health or your trust. What helped it grow again?

  5. Write an honest prayer about your locust years. You might tell God what you lost, what you still grieve and what you hardly dare to ask for.

  6. Reading about restoration may stir nothing in you today. Describe the bare ground as it is right now, without forcing a harvest. What do you notice?

  7. Choose one small thing to replant this week: a habit, a phone call, an hour of rest. What is it, and when will you do it?