Joel Osteen
Our daughter, Alexandra, was two months old when my father went to be with the Lord. During that time, my dad was on dialysis. I was taking him up to the clinic and bringing him back home nearly every day. It was a very busy season. Then two months later, when Daddy died, our whole world changed. We were thrust into this new position. I was doing my best to just try to keep my head above water. The first few years of Alexandra’s life are such a blur because there was so much going on.
I realized this one day when we were looking at her baby pictures. I just didn’t have the same memories of her first few years as I do our son, Jonathan. Just under my breath, almost in passing, I said, “God, I’m asking You to restore the years that I lost being so busy and so preoccupied with other things.” At that time, Alexandra was about six years old. It seemed like from that time forward, all she wanted to do was be with me, her father. She would rather go out in the backyard and let me watch her turn cartwheels than to have her friends over to play. In fact, sometimes I needed a break. I would say, “Alexandra, are you sure you don’t want to go to your cousin’s? You can go swimming. You sure you don’t want to invite your friends over?”
She’d say, “No, Daddy. I just want to stay here with you.”
Even now, at fourteen years old, we’re still the best of friends. She’ll come up to me during the day and put her arm around me. We’ll laugh and talk and just have a good time. Do you know what that is? That’s God restoring the years. That’s God turning back time.
Today, are there years in a relationship you missed out on? Why don’t you ask God to restore those years—to restore any opportunities that you missed? Ask Him to restore relationships that aren’t what they should be. When God restores something, He makes it better than it could have been. That is His heart—He is a Restorer of relationships. That’s why He sent His Son, Jesus, to earth—to restore mankind to Himself! Scripture says, if He gave His Son for us, won’t He freely give us all things? Won’t He freely restore all things? Ask, believe and receive because He will restore those years to you!
“And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten…” (Joel 2:25, ASV)
