Wooden cross in the Good Shepherd Chapel

Day

29

Even Now

Lent 2018

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

Joel 2:12-14

The first and second chapter of the Book of Joel open with images of destruction, war, loss, and confusion. The events are compared to a devastating plague of locusts. Locusts are insects that eat twice their body weight daily! While we do not have many plagues of locusts in these modern times, we have evidence historically of locust plagues from Africa about 100 years ago. In the wake of a plague, land once lush and prolific can be laid bare.

Sometimes, as we go through our days amid the ups and down of different weeks or even seasons, we feel like we face similar destruction. Loss is experienced through death, or in brokenness through a separation. We might see casualties in broken promises, shattered dreams, or even in the crazy, unrelenting spin cycle that our daily life can sometimes be. We have made our schedule or our responsibilities a god we honor with time and attention and have forsaken the one true God who gives us all we need and cares so much about us. We feel isolated and alone, often knowing somewhere deep down that we are not living as we were created to live. This reading from Joel offers hope.

“Yet even now.” Stop. After the prophet portrays a picture of crisis and hopelessness in Chapter 1 and the first verses of chapter 2, I read this now and I want to get up and do a happy dance.

Re-read these words of promise again. “Yet even now.” Don’t you want to drink this in? No matter how terrible today seems, no matter the crazy, out of control situation we see around us, no matter how awful the damage or destruction, God LOVES us! Time and again throughout the narrative of Scripture, God has established a relationship with His people, showed them the life they were created for, watched as they threw that life away to become just like everyone else, and eventually get into serious trouble. He then came in and saved His people, loving them and restoring them to Himself. He is crazy about us and he shows his character traits of faithfulness, love, generosity, and patience in this simple phrase. Read on a little further:

"Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 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. 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? (Joel 2:12-14)

Friend, if you are reading this today and you have had it, if you are looking into an unrelenting pattern of things keeping you from rejoicing in God, if you are at the end of your rope, consider how God does his best work at the end of our ropes! God is not fazed or surprised by your situation. He loves you so much right now as you are experiencing it. God has saved you from eternal destruction and disaster and he is able to walk with you in whatever you are facing today.

Lent is a season of looking toward the cross. God is loving you, looking for your return to him, looking to walk with you in grace and love! My prayer for you, and me, is that we will daily look at the incredible grace and love of God—this God who says “Yet even now” no matter what—and return to him with all our hearts.

Shelli Haynes, '95
DCE, Red Hill Lutheran Church – Tustin, CA

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