LIFT Daily Prayer: God Restores What Was Lost | November 8, 2025
This message explores the powerful biblical promise of restoration found in Joel 2:25-26, emphasizing how God acts to recover lost time, blessings, and spiritual clarity after periods of suffering, disobedience, or hardship. It underscores the critical Christian practice of praying the scripture—using the Bible as the foundation for expressing personal needs to God.
The Power of Restorative Prayer: Joel 2:25-26
The practice of “praying the word of God” involves learning to take personal needs and “craft it” or “nail it to the passage,” rather than twisting the scripture to fit the need. The focus passage for understanding divine restoration is Joel 2:25-26, which contains a powerful promise:
“So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust; 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; and My people shall never be put to shame”.
The Scope of Restoration
While this prophecy was originally written by Yoel (Joel) to the Jewish people regarding Israel’s future, believers (Gentiles) are grafted into the promises of God and become children of Abraham by faith, making this promise applicable to them as well.
God promises to restore the years that the “swarming, crawling, consuming, chewing, devouring locusts have inflicted” upon them. The locusts here symbolize the afflictions, hard times, and suffering that have “eaten up” and “swallowed up” blessings.
Why God Allows Affliction
The source clarifies that God allowed this “great army” of destructive locusts to afflict the nation primarily due to their disobedience. Examples of profound disobedience included the practice of offering newborn children to the pagan god Moloch, which the speaker likens to abortions.
God judged the nation because they belonged to Him. However, the affliction served a secondary, restorative purpose: it was sometimes the only way they would listen to Him.
Practical Application for Believers Today
Believers are urged to embrace this promise with all their heart because God pledges to restore and bless them even when they have been “laid low by the locust” of their own lives.
Confessing Disobedience and Seeking Forgiveness
The path to restoration begins with confession and repentance. Many hardships are brought upon the self. Believers confess they lost sight of God by making “good things” bigger than Him—a common theme that relates to “weights” that slow down the Christian race [6, j]. These idols can include:
- The job or career.
- Sports or hobbies (which, though not sin, become obstacles if they consume energy [j]).
- Even the marriage or parenting itself.
The prayer is to confess these idols and ask God to “restore to us what suffering has eaten” and to “remove” the affliction now that the lesson has been learned. The ultimate goal is that the believer’s life would “never again be out of step with your will”.