I’ve been delving into Joel and I’ve been seriously challenged. Joel was a messenger, but before he became one, I believe he had many wrestless nights of prayer and many encounters with God.
The book starts w/ a cry for authenticity: “Hear this, you elders… Has anything like this happened in your days…?” (1:2). He calls for the leaders to look at the problems facing the nation, to take a real good look at them and see them for what they are.
Before I go on, I must say that I believe this book fits for more than national crisis and eschatology, though those are the two main and important focus. I believe it fits for personal crisis and family crisis as well. Joel is a guide, a challenge, an answer that gives hope in the hour of crisis. How are the righteous to respond? What will God do in our favor?
Joel starts w/ a cry for authenticity. He cries out something that has been stirring in his heart. He sees his nation in desolation and he can’t bear under the burden of the problems that have come to Israel. He said, “What the chewing locust left, teh swarming locust ahs eaten; what the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten; and what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten” (1:4). This is a literal locust plague, but symbolically, I feel like our families so many times have been consumed by life, by Satan, by sin. My heart many times feel this way. It’s just waves of destruction taking away life, joy, bouyancy, love. I feel so dry. So hungry. So empty and hurting.
Joel goes on, “How the animals groan! The herds of cattle are restless, b/c they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment” (1:18). Life is so dry, so horrible that even the animals suffer! Even the animals cry out to God at the dryness of our hearts. Romans says what happens to us happens to them. “Fire has devoured the open pastures, and a flame burned all the trees of the field” (1:19) What pain behind these words. What anguish, the kind you feel deep in your gut.
That’s how I feel. My heart is not okay. It feels like my joy has been devoured by the circumstances of life (locust) and like fire (from God and from the devil?) has devoured my heart. My family is dry. My church is dry. I need to be authentic. Things are NOT okay.
One of the biggest problems, however, is entertainment. TV is like anesthesia. Oh, life sucks, so let’s go out and have coffee and pretend like everythign is okay. Joel had a different response b/c of something that happened in his prayer closet. He couldn’t lie to himself anymore. He couldn’t medicate himself anymore. He took a real look, from heaven’s perspective and saw that things were NOT okay. “Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine…” (1:5).
“Hear you, elders, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land!” (1:2a). I want to be an intercessor. I want to ask God to show me a TRUE, REAL look at life. I need to hear the groan of the animals and the fields devoured by fire. I need the pain to go deep in my gut until I can’t ignore it no more. To receive healing, I must know the depth of pain. I want to be authentic before God before I can point my finger to certain people. Yet I must say this out loud b/c it helps go deep inside my heart.
I must be an intercessor for my elders, that they would have an encounter with God and hear the groans of the Spirit and the parching thrist of God’s sheep. I must pray for my parents to have an encounter with God that’ll lead them to desperate prayer. I must pray for leaders of this nation to have such a true look! I must have such an encounter. I must serve my leaders in this way before I can be trusted w/ a message such as Joel’s.
Prophetically, I say in my prayer, “Listen, you elders, and all you people, to the groan. Have an authentic look at life. See it as God sees it. Awaken you drunkards. Don’t let TV and another bbq act as anesthesia, and thus lead you away from God and closer to destruction. All of us, let us be honest w/ ourselves, let us be poor in spirit, and cry out to God. Perhaps He will hear us and turn it all around, and turn out tears into rain. Do we have any other hope? Is there any other way?”
God, help us. Encounter us with authenticity. Without this, there is no true cry of prayer. As long as we’re drunk and medicated, we will never have the spirit of prayer and supplication. Help, God. You’re merciful, and You are our only chance.
