Laid Waste and In Despair
Opening Prayer
Heavenly Father, Your mighty acts are on display. Your acts of kindness challenge me. I bow to You today.
Read Joel 1:1-12
[1] The word of the LORD that came to Joel son of Pethuel. [2] Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors? [3] Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. [4] What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten. [5] Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips. [6] A nation has invaded my land, a mighty army without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness. [7] It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white. [8] Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth. [9] Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the LORD. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the LORD. [10] The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails. [11] Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed. [12] The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree- all the trees of the field-are dried up. Surely the people’s joy is withered away. Scripture taken from the THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION, NIV Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
How does Joel describe the ruin visited on God's people?Freak events such as storms or floods are sometimes said to happen “once in a generation.” But the event that has overtaken Israel is even rarer. Joel says it is unlike anything in previous generations–or anything that will happen in generations to come (2,3). But what has happened? Verses 4,6,10-12 make it clear. The whole land has been devastated by a massive swarm of locusts that has devoured everything in its path: vines, trees and crops. The devastation is total. There will be no wine to drink (5) and nothing to offer in God’s Temple (9). Joel’s words are a cry of despair and anguish. He is utterly overwhelmed by the experience. He is in mourning for the land laid waste: the land that was God’s gift to Israel. He feels for the people. The time for explanation will come. But he takes his time, and for now he simply mourns with them. “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” says Paul (Rom. 12:15). There are times when we can be far too ready to offer people explanations when we simply need to sit alongside them in their suffering.
Apply
Pray that the Lord will give you the grace and love to sit alongside someone today.
Closing prayer
Lord Jesus, when I see those with needs greater than mine, help me to provide them the kind of comfort You provide me.
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