Blessing the wild animals
This week is on Joel 2:21-26:
These are the blessings that follow the section we talked about last week. After stopping and seeking God, unusual blessing is poured out. It's a bumper harvest after famine. It's a downpour after a drought.
God calls the Israelites "wild animals". Wild animals live for themselves. Literally, they live like animals. They are like the deer who plunder my garden, having done nothing to deserve the blessings I labored for, but reaping them all the same. They didn't buy the seed, till the ground, water the crops, yank out the weeds, or pay the property taxes, but they get the best of my tomatoes and squash. These people who had done nothing to contribute were about to get a huge blessing from God.
God lists the food he is going to give these starving undeserving people. There will be food, drink, and oil, and it will be in such abundance that they won't have the containers to hold it all. It will exceed their greatest expectations. (Who builds a container precisely the size of their expected harvest? Nobody! Everybody sets aside extra space, just in case things go well...) Everything goes well, everything is fruitful, and everyone is provided for. This, just for a bunch of people who did nothing but quit ignoring God and his desires.
God promises to repay them for the years the locusts have stolen. Have you ever wasted years of your life? Years of fruitlessness, squandered, but God repays them as if they were working all those years, and as if there was no famine or drought in them. I love that the best of all of the blessings God promised the Israelites. It's pure grace and love.
It wasn't as if the Israelites repaid God for the time they wasted and wallowed in sin. God starts fresh with them, but replenishes the Israelites for their years of punishment instead. Imagine getting pardoned part way through your prison sentence, and when you get out, the judge gives you all of the salary you would have earned during those years, if you'd been improving your career instead of committing crimes, plus a bonus!
God tells the Israelites, those people who wronged him up until the day he decided to bless them, that they will eat until they are full, and never be shamed again. As Americans, we have no idea what it is to not have complete food security. A hundred years or more ago, people were a lot more dependent on the weather and the harvest. Some years you would barely have enough to eat. Eating until you were full was a real blessing. (You mean I can have all of the peach cobbler I want and there will still be enough for my brothers and sisters?!)
We are God's people today. We are the Israelites. His blessings, and kind dealings, are the same for us as they were for them. He wants to bless us, and he wants us to stop doing fruitless things and to follow him. The Israelites didn't have to do great things. They didn't have to impress God. They just needed to rediscover God, and to choose his plan over whatever it was they were doing instead. Let's try that and see what happens.
Do not be afraid, land of Judah;
be glad and rejoice.
Surely the Lord has done great things!
Do not be afraid, you wild animals,
for the pastures in the wilderness are becoming green.
The trees are bearing their fruit;
the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.
Be glad, people of Zion,
rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given you
the autumn rains in righteousness.
He sends you abundant showers,
both autumn and spring rains, as before.
The threshing floors will be filled with grain;
the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
the great locust and the young locust,
the other locusts and the locust swarm—
my great army that I sent among you.
You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.
These are the blessings that follow the section we talked about last week. After stopping and seeking God, unusual blessing is poured out. It's a bumper harvest after famine. It's a downpour after a drought.
God calls the Israelites "wild animals". Wild animals live for themselves. Literally, they live like animals. They are like the deer who plunder my garden, having done nothing to deserve the blessings I labored for, but reaping them all the same. They didn't buy the seed, till the ground, water the crops, yank out the weeds, or pay the property taxes, but they get the best of my tomatoes and squash. These people who had done nothing to contribute were about to get a huge blessing from God.
God lists the food he is going to give these starving undeserving people. There will be food, drink, and oil, and it will be in such abundance that they won't have the containers to hold it all. It will exceed their greatest expectations. (Who builds a container precisely the size of their expected harvest? Nobody! Everybody sets aside extra space, just in case things go well...) Everything goes well, everything is fruitful, and everyone is provided for. This, just for a bunch of people who did nothing but quit ignoring God and his desires.
God promises to repay them for the years the locusts have stolen. Have you ever wasted years of your life? Years of fruitlessness, squandered, but God repays them as if they were working all those years, and as if there was no famine or drought in them. I love that the best of all of the blessings God promised the Israelites. It's pure grace and love.
It wasn't as if the Israelites repaid God for the time they wasted and wallowed in sin. God starts fresh with them, but replenishes the Israelites for their years of punishment instead. Imagine getting pardoned part way through your prison sentence, and when you get out, the judge gives you all of the salary you would have earned during those years, if you'd been improving your career instead of committing crimes, plus a bonus!
God tells the Israelites, those people who wronged him up until the day he decided to bless them, that they will eat until they are full, and never be shamed again. As Americans, we have no idea what it is to not have complete food security. A hundred years or more ago, people were a lot more dependent on the weather and the harvest. Some years you would barely have enough to eat. Eating until you were full was a real blessing. (You mean I can have all of the peach cobbler I want and there will still be enough for my brothers and sisters?!)
We are God's people today. We are the Israelites. His blessings, and kind dealings, are the same for us as they were for them. He wants to bless us, and he wants us to stop doing fruitless things and to follow him. The Israelites didn't have to do great things. They didn't have to impress God. They just needed to rediscover God, and to choose his plan over whatever it was they were doing instead. Let's try that and see what happens.
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