Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:6-7 NKJV.

As for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. Micah 7:7.

Our chapter, Joel 1, begins the book of Joel who warned the nation of Judah of God’s impending judgment. In the introduction below, it said, “The people of Judah had become prosperous and complacent. Taking God for granted, they had turned to self-centeredness, idolatry, and sin. Joel warned them that this kind of lifestyle would inevitably bring God’s judgment.” The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel. 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? Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. 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…A nation has invaded my land, a mighty army without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness. 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…The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails…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. Alas for that day! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty…To you, Lord, I call, for fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness and flames have burned up all the trees of the field. Even the wild animals pant for You; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness. v. 1-4, 6-7, 10, 14-15, 19-20.

It’s so easy to be complacent when everything is going well. We take the blessings of Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit, for granted as though they are our due. Locusts strip every living plant bare; drought withholds life-saving water; fire destroys in moments what took a lifetime to build. Sometimes there’s no place to run, but we try. And the things I worry for, God tells me to give to Him in trust. The angst in this world is real. It should be seen and and the reasons mourned. Last night watching an episode of Nature, it showed in Africa a remote place where lions, hippopotamus, and alligators live. A drought the severity of which has not been seen in one hundred years forced the hippos and alligators to lie tightly together in the only remaining mud puddle. A tense truce brought on by necessity. Some of the huge alligators, suffering from a virus, writhed in convulsions before dying. The rains that came, and how blessed and welcome they were, were too late for those alligators. Even the wild animals pant for You; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness. Lord, I feel like those wild animals panting for You. I long for You to come and fill this mud puddle of ours with Your truth and Your love and rescue us from the lies of this world pressing down upon us relentlessly. There is so much need and every need is for You. Let the sound of thunder herald the rains of healing and life only You can bring. Can you imagine the rejoicing when our sins are no more? That’s why Jesus, the Son, came.