BRF -- Joel

Joel is an interesting book, full of flavour and imagery. Its also a little scary and really exciting. It made me want to be Jewish and terrified to make the same mistakes the people of Israel made. It is both terrifying and wonderfully amazing to see how God has the control of the nations in His hands.
How often do I forget? How often do I just not see that God is in control? I go about life. I may even be praying that I will be obedient to the Lord and to be doing everything to His glory... but do I see Him at all? Do I see that he holds the nations in check, raises up and causes leaders to fall, blesses whom He will and punishes those who He loves and complacently ignore Him?
Nope. I alternate between "loving" Him by studying His word and praying and doing my best to live for Him, making "good" decisions and thinking I'm ok and... messing up... complaining, losing my cool... all of it, good and bad with not a true view of who God is.
There is no way to know all of who God is.
He is infinitely beyond the capabilities of my reasoning.
He is in charge of everything and everyone.... everyone on this planet... and those in the spiritual realm as well.
These Israelites forgot about God.
They were just like me, going about their daily business, doing the right things outwardly maybe, but not quite touching their hearts.
Ch 2 vs 13 says "Rend your hearts, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm. (14) Who knows if He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him -- a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God."
Lets take some time and interrupt our everyday lives.
Lets take some time and remember who God is.
Lets take some time to rend our hearts for our complacency towards our God.
Lets take some time to rejoice in the Lord our God.
Look who He is!!!
Look what He has done!!
In His great love, He shook them from their complacency. In His love, He utterly removed them from everything they knew to remind them who He is. To bring them back to fellowship... real fellowship with Himself.
Then... at the end... the blessings on those of the house of Israel. The amazing blessings that are still to come to them. I am a graft on the vine of the house of Israel. Do I deserve the amazing blessing showered upon the land and the people of Israel in the last days? No. I am not in the family line.. but I am adopted into the family.
Reading the end of Joel makes me want to relocate to Israel. I want to be there when their enemies are miraculously turned back and destroyed because of what they have done to the chosen ones of God.
There are amazing things in store both for the children of Israel and the children of God.
We need to wake up and take notice that our little worlds are not the end all and be all of God's plan.
We need to remember who God is... vast, unchanging, righteous, true, loving, forgiving, full of mercy, holy.
We need to remember what God is not... tolerant of sin, ok with being 2nd or later in our lives, complacent, politically correct or asleep.
We need to be watching what is happening in the middle east right now... and be praying for our prime minister as he stands up for Israel regardless of what the pundits in Ottawa are saying. Yes, we need to be a little bit political and pray for our nation. Will our nation be strong if we turn our backs on the chosen ones of God? No.
God is also in control of our nation. It will rise and fall because of the people of God in our land. Will we humble ourselves and pray? Will we take our responsibility to pray for our leaders seriously? Will we ask forgiveness for the sins of our nation? Do we? Are we teaching our children to?