Grace Day #29: The Restored Field
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten… You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you.” — Joel 2:25-26 (NIV)
The Journey
The envelope on my kitchen counter was heavy, cream-colored, and expensive. I didn’t need to open it to know what it was. It was the invitation to my twenty-year high school reunion.
I picked it up and tossed it directly into the trash can.
There was no way I was going. I knew what those nights were like. They were showcases. People wore name tags and bragged about their promotions, their beach houses, and their ivy-league children.
And what would I say? “Hi, I’m Michael. I spent the last fifteen years battling a gambling addiction that cost me my marriage, my career in finance, and my dignity. I’ve been sober for two years. I work at a hardware store, and I live in a studio apartment above a garage.”
I was forty-two, but I felt like I was twenty-two, just starting over while everyone else was taking victory laps.
I sat on my couch, staring at the wall. The regret was a physical ache in my chest. I mourned the decade I had lost to the casinos. I mourned the “what could have been.” I felt like a runner who had tripped at the starting line and was trying to join the race when everyone else was crossing the finish line. It’s too late, the voice in my head whispered. You missed your window. You can survive, but you will never thrive.
The next morning, I was at work, mixing paint for a customer. An older man named Mr. Abernathy came in. He was a regular, a retired carpenter with hands like sandpaper and a smile that lit up the aisle. He was buying supplies to build a massive deck on his house.
“Big project, Mr. Abernathy,” I commented.
“Huge!” he laughed. “My grandkids are going to love it.”
I knew Mr. Abernathy’s story because he was open about it. He had spent twenty years in prison. He didn’t get out until he was fifty. He started his carpentry business at fifty-one. Now, at seventy, he was a pillar of the community, a mentor to young men, and the happiest man I knew.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, wiping a paint can. “Do you ever… do you ever look back at those twenty years inside and feel like you wasted your life? Like you can never get that time back?”
Mr. Abernathy stopped smiling. He looked me dead in the eye.
“Michael,” he said seriously. “I don’t look back. There’s nothing back there but ghosts. Yes, the locusts ate those years. They stripped the field bare. But do you know what I found out about God?”
I shook my head.
“He’s a God of the bumper crop,” he said, leaning over the counter. “When I gave Him my life at fifty, I thought I had nothing left to offer. But God said, ‘Watch this.’ He took my remaining twenty years and packed forty years of blessing into them. He didn’t just give me time; He gave me density. He accelerated the harvest.”
He pointed a finger at my chest. “You think you’re behind. But you’re measuring by the world’s clock. In God’s economy, one day of favor is worth a thousand days of labor. Stop mourning the locusts, son. Start plowing the field you have left.”
One day of favor is worth a thousand days of labor.
The words hit me like a splash of cold water. I realized I had been worshipping my regret. I was so busy staring at the empty field of my past that I was refusing to plant seeds in my present.
I went home that night. I didn’t fish the reunion invitation out of the trash—I still wasn’t ready for that. But I did something better. I signed up for night classes to get my certification in counseling. I wanted to help men with addictions.
It took time. It wasn’t instant magic. But five years later, I am not “behind.” I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I run a recovery ministry. I am remarried to a woman who loves the man I am, not the man I could have been.
I learned that you cannot get the time back, but you can get the years back. God can restore the weight, the joy, and the fruitfulness of a lifetime into the season you have left.
Heart of the Matter
Regret is one of the enemy’s most effective weapons because it paralyzes us in the past. We convince ourselves that because we started late, messed up, or took a detour, we are disqualified from a significant life. We think, “If I had only done X, I would be happy.”
But Joel 2:25 gives us a stunning promise: God restores the years the locusts have eaten. He doesn’t turn back the clock—that’s impossible. Instead, He infuses the remaining time with supernatural fruitfulness.
Think of the thief on the cross. He wasted his entire life. But in his final hour, he recognized Jesus, and Jesus promised him Paradise. His “last hour” counted more than his entire life. It is never too late to plant. God is the Master of the late harvest. He can do more with your surrendered “now” than you could have done with your “perfect” yesterday.
Faith in Action
Do you have a period of life you regret? (The years in a bad relationship, the years of fear, the years of addiction).
The Challenge: Write that time period on a piece of paper. (e.g., “1998-2005: The Years of Fear”). Underneath it, write: “Paid in Full.”
Then, light a candle. Hold the paper (safely) and burn it, dropping it into a sink or fire-safe bowl. As it turns to ash, say out loud: “I give the ashes to You, Lord. I trust You to bring beauty from them. I am moving forward.”
Prayer for the Day
Redeemer of Time, I bring You my regrets. I mourn the time I wasted, the opportunities I missed, and the years that feel empty. I ask You to fulfill the promise of Joel 2:25 in my life. Restore what was lost. Accelerate Your work in me. Let my remaining days be so full of Your grace that they outweigh the years of my wandering. I stop looking back so I can run the race set before me. Amen.
Grace Note
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” — Attributed to George Eliot