Joel 2:12-14 English Standard Version

Return to the Lord

12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;

13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?

The opening verses of Joel 2 are titled “The Day of the Lord”. We can read those words for ourselves but I have to ask this of our God, “yet even now”, is it true for us today?

If it is a way to avoid that which is written about the Day of the Lord, is it nationalistic in nature or just personal?

As a people of God we have our concerns over those we love and we would prefer to avoid such calamities that are avoidable. Our concerns are both individual and national. Perhaps nationalistic concerns are too narrow. We are not as aware of things in areas of the world nearly as much as we are about things at home.

Over the years there have been many calls to repentance that have gone out abroad and have been answered only in some small portion. Nothing has touched our people on such a broad enough scale as to say that a nation is in mourning over their sins.

Will He relent for the sake of fifty good men? If not fifty, then forty, or thirty? Will you relent for the sake of even ten?

Is this our Lot lesson? Will we flee and escape only with our family?

We pray O Lord, what would you have us do?