Jesus wants you back… He wants you with Him in love, unrivaled and fully devoted to Him forever. Listen to His whispers in the moonlight singing a lyric in the starlight over you. Listen to His heartbeat in the poetry of jungle rivers pouring into you. An oasis of bliss is the peace His soul utters. Because He finds you and woos you to Himself.

With one glance from Jesus, every moment of heartbreak metamorphosizes into healing. With one word of His love, every season of lack transforms into wisdom and vision. The pain is forgotten. God’s love revitalizes you all over again as if nothing is lost at all. God ignites your love again.

“I will restore to you the years
    that the swarming locust has eaten,
the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter,
    my great army, which I sent among you.

“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
    and praise the name of the Lord your God,
    who has dealt wondrously with you.” Joel 2:25-26

The Hebrew word for “swarming locust” is “hā·’ar·beh.” It is a masculine noun that describes a swarm of invaders that leaves destruction in the wake as in Judges 6:5.

In this story of Judge 6-7, God speaks to Gideon to fight for the Israelites.

God draws them back to His heart through an invitation to repent and renew their vow to Him in love.

“The Lord turned to him and said, “Go in the strength you have and save Israel out of Midian’s hand. Am I not sending you?” Judges 6:14

Swarming locusts also shed their shells in addition to ravaging crops and vegetation. So, not only do they damage the land but they leave the evidence of their exit behind.

But soon, juicy fruits and luscious foliage will blossom in the place where death was.

In Judges 7, Gideon goes on to defeat the Midianites with 300.

Swarms of locusts cannot eat your garden.

Swarms of locusts cannot take up residence in your garden.

God already envisioned a garden of purity and beauty to burst into life there.

Swarms of locusts cannot destroy your garden.

God catalyzes a garden of purity and beauty to burst into life there.

The God of all creation promises to restore what the enemy took just He prophesied and promised in Joel 2. The enemy cannot waste your time when time is ordered from Heaven’s own timeclock, revolving around the ever-infinite schedule of God Himself.

God reigns over time.

God restores time.

God gives back time.

God defines time itself.

Years restored. Years supplied. Years revitalized to exceed every expectation you ever had. Because God loves you that.

For all the years the locusts eat, God restores it back to you.

“And My people shall never again be put to shame.” Joel 2:26

God will not let the locusts back in.

God takes the locust-riden territory and creates extravagant splendor in that space for you to enjoy forever.

God has history of making supernatural epics out of war-torn pasts. We don’t have to fear what will happen in the future based on what we lost in the past, because God gives it all back to you. So not only do you get back everything you lost, but you gain the wisdom you learned from all those years you saw the locusts devour. Thus, you gain double.

God declares through the prophet Joel, “The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil” in Joel 2:24 as a result of God restoring what the locusts ate.

Your garden abounds with luscious fruits.

“The Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he prayed for his friends, and the Lord increased all that Job had twofold.” Job 42:10

When God restores, every resource overflows in abundance to you.

God desires to flood His Holy Spirit onto you to give you the breath of His life-giving love.

“And it shall come to pass afterward,
    that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
    your old men shall dream dreams,
    and your young men shall see visions.
Even on the male and female servants
    in those days I will pour out My Spirit.”

Joel 2:28-29

God guarantees this will happen. He says “it shall come to pass” that He will pour our His Spirit on us. Jesus wants to lift you up onto His timeless way of life, where you are not bound by hours in a day nor months in a year but you are liberated by the hope of eternity.

The spirit of the earth’s timeline can never rule your life when Jesus rules your life.

God does not withhold His Holy Spirit from His people whom He told He would give it to. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would come after He ascended to Heaven. The Holy Spirit will continue to speak to us until Jesus comes back a second time and then we are called up to Heaven to dwell with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for eternity.

God is the One who makes the garden bloom and God is the One who restores His pure garden back to the elegance and wonder He envisions.

God is your lover.

God is your provider.

Let God catalyze your garden.