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1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

An Invasion of Locusts

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[a] 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[b] tree— all the trees of the field—are dried up.

Surely the people’s joy is withered away.

A Call to Lamentation

13 Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God. 14 Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.

 

So today I wonder, what eats you up? What are the names of your locusts and lions? Is it “finances” or “relationship” or “job” or “disease” or “age” or something else? Is there hope it will be resolved in this life or maybe not so much?

Whatever it is, we can be thankful that we can “Turn (our) Eyes Upon Jesus,” as hymnist Helen Howarth Lemmel wrote, and “look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”

The Israelites are instructed to turn. Apparently, their situation is in part a result of their own doing. Thankfully live on this side of the cross and our sins are already atoned for. Still, when we suffer, we can turn and look up. When we do this, there is hope. We hope for things unseen. And our hope is sure.

Dear Lord, please help us work through our struggles, knowing always that our ultimate hope will not be gained in this life.

Juli Hampton

Ham10five@gmail.com

 

Prayer Concern: Areas that are ravaged by poverty and natural disasters