Even when things seem bleak, God has a will for us.
Written by
5 loaves of bread
“What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten;
What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten;
And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.”
Joel 1 paints a very bleak picture - an attack from another nation (v6) coupled with a great famine results in unprecedented and utter destruction upon their nation.
We too, may experience moments when we receive God’s chastisement, and things appear to be bleak.
Even when faced with such a hopeless situation, there is one thing that we can do. And that is to have the correct response to it. It is all too easy to feel overwhelmed, to abandon all hope and instead seek pleasure (like the drunkards in v5 who were still getting drunk in this time of disaster), or even to resent God (like Job’s wife, who told Job to curse God and die when disaster struck).
And indeed, if our God were a cruel and merciless God, this may be a reasonable response. But our God is not so. As Jeremiah says in Lamentations 3:31-33:
“For the Lord will not cast off forever. Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. For He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men.”
And so, even amidst the death and destruction, God through Joel teaches the people what they ought to do when punished.
“Awake, you drunkards, and weep.” (v5) If we are still in spiritual slumber when God’s punishment comes, we may not even recognise it as God’s chastening. The first thing we must do is come to our senses, and see not only what is happening, but also see our spiritual state.
“Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.” (v8); “Be ashamed, you farmers” (v11); “Gird yourselves and lament, you priests” (v13). The next step is clear - we must mourn for our present situation. And this mourning is not about self-pity; instead, we must recognise that we have sin. As David says in Psalm 51:17, God does not despise a broken and contrite heart.
And lastly, the prophet says in v19 - “O LORD, to You I cry out.” Recognising that our predicament is the will of God, only He will be able to deliver us from it. I personally really like how Daniel prayed in Daniel 9:18:
“O my God, incline Your ear and hear; open Your eyes and see our desolations, and the city which is called by Your name; for we do not present our supplications before You because of our righteous deeds, but because of Your great mercies.”
Let us always trust in the love and mercies of our Heavenly Father.