Read 2 Kings 22 and Joel 1.
This devotional is about Joel 1.
The prophet Joel tells us little about himself and it is difficult to know from his prophecy when exactly he lived and spoke the Lord’s word. It seems likely that Joel ministered after God’s people returned to the land under Cyrus, king of Persia. All of the prophecies about the Northern Kingdom’s defeat to Assyria and the Southern Kingdom’s exile by the Babylonians had been fulfilled. So, too, had God’s promise to return his people to the promised land.
Even though the exiles were over, God’s people were not immune from problems and suffering. Joel 1 describes a different kind of disaster than the military defeats the other prophets foretold. In verses 2-4 we are told that locusts had invaded the land and devastated the crops. Wave after wave (v. 4) of locusts came until there was no harvest left. This left God’s people in dire economic circumstances. They had no grain, vegetables or fruit to eat and none to sell (v. 11). They still had animals, but what would they eat (v. 13)? In a farming-based economy, this would mean starvation and economic ruin for the whole nation.
Joel calls to the leaders of the land–the elders (v. 2) and priests (v. 13) to turn to God at this time (v. 19). This is one human resopnse to a problem like this; the other is to reject God, to curse him and die as Job’s wife counseled him to do in another time and place.
What is the most devastating thing that has ever happened to you? Losing a war against a world power like Israel did to Assyria and Judah did to Babylon would be devastating. None of us reading this have experienced anything like that, thankfully.
But have you faced an economic wipeout–bankruptcy, unempoloyment, or something else? Did it bring you before the face of God in prayer, pleading for his help or did it make you bitter against him, turning away from him in anger?
God allows many kinds of trials into our lives (James 1:2-12). They are all designed to reveal whether we really love and trust him or if we say and act as if we love and trust him while things are good. In other words, trials reveal who the true believers are and who thinks they are a believer when they are not.
But trials also refine the faith of true believers. They show us where our faith in God is weak and teach us to fully depend on him and not on ourselves so much. If you’re experiencing any kind of trial right now, how is your response to it? Does Joel’s call to come before the Lord speak to you about your need to lean on the Lord more than ever at this time?