Jesus Will Fix Your Problems – If You Call Upon Him To Do So
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<God said through Joel,> “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.’ (Joel 2:25)
The context of Joel 2 is the ‘Army of the Locust’ that invades Israel/Judah, likely a metaphor for a great army that invades Israel from it’s north and south, and overwhelms Israel, at least at first. The first nine verses of Joel paint a picture of this invading army coming into the cities and then individual dwellings, consuming and taking over everything in front of it.
It is a very grim picture, but then God instructs His people not to lose sight of Him, to instead fast and pray for God to deliver His people from the ‘locust’, those who have invaded. They are to ‘rend their hearts and not their garments’ (Joel 2:13) or to anguish or despair over their situation, and not just go through pre-determined motions but to truly seek God’s redemption and rescue.
Then the Lord will provide them relief, and drive the ‘locust’ out, and restore what the ‘locust’ or invading army devoured (Joel 2:18-27). After that, the Lord promises Joel, the Holy Spirit will pour out and given to His Faithful people (Joel 2:28), in a prophecy first fulfilled at Pentecost with the fledging Christian church (Acts 2:1-13).
As with many prophecies, there are often several events we can look at and see the fulfillment of Joel 2, from the Babylonian exile of Israel/Judah, the restoration of Israel in 1948 to the present, and through the Tribulation battle of Armageddon, in addition to the aforementioned provision of the Holy Spirit during Pentecost days after Jesus’ Ascension.
In Israel’s case of Babylon’s invasion, it was a bit of both; their corporate sin of turning away from God kicked in the ‘if/then’ statement God had provided Moses and later Joshua, ‘If you obey God and follow His commands, you’ll be blessed; if you disobey God and ignore His commands, you’ll be cursed.’ When they obeyed God, Israel thrived. When they didn’t – and they often did not for long stretches – God’s curse was removing his hand of protection from them and they fell to the invading armies. God gave them seventy years in exile to first return to Him (and rend their hearts) before He returned them to Israel.
We can also look at Joel 2, and see it applied to individual lives. Events often can take over our lives; it can be woes of financial burdens, or diminishing health. It can be due to ourselves falling into a pit due to sin or something others have done to us, despite our innocence. Nevertheless, when things happen, we need to first recognize the problem, and then seek God for His help. We run into the need to repair the issues we face, whether minor or major; sometimes we don’t know what exactly the problem is, but we must acknowledge we have a problem.
Think of issues of a car that intermittently stalls (something I recently had experienced). It’s readily apparent to recognize the problem (the car stops when it should go), but there may be a multitude of possible items that would cause it to stall. If you are not a mechanic or a big ‘car geek’ (I am not), you thus realize that you need someone who understands how to find and fix the issue or issues causing the stalling, otherwise you drive around with the cloud of the car stalling at any given time (like at a busy intersection with cars around you all expecting you to move – fortunately this did not happen to me).
So, you take the car to a mechanic, who diagnoses the problem, finds the issue (a faulty sensor in my case), and fixes it so you no longer stall. In this and other problems, whether more serious or more trivial, we need to turn to Jesus and seek His remedies (I prayed for God’s wisdom to steer me to the right mechanic). Problems are for us to suffer, whether self-inflicted or brought upon us; God is the one who resolves our problems.
The ‘locust’ or enemies come to devour or create problems – big or small, and we must understand that sometimes they will succeed, at least temporarily. The Lord does not want us to lose Faith, but to turn to Him in Hope. He will always respond in His perfect timing and in His perfect way. We often add to our problem when we become impatient and start trying to fix our problems in our own might and wisdom. Had I done that with my car, it would have never run again, and the problem would have escalated into towing it away and needing a new car, a much more expensive and painful problem to deal with (as I dislike car-shopping greatly).
God’s solutions may not always be what we believe to be complete, but they are in accordance to His purpose. We do know that sometimes a health-related problem is not always completely restorable, but God’s perfect plan is always carried out. In some cases, our problems are used by Him to showcase His grace and His glory, that through our demonstration of our dependence on Him in our problem can be used to bring others toward Jesus and His Gospel message. Our struggles can be a beacon of Hope and an example of Faith, so we should not despair but continue to be seeking His remedies of our condition and accept that which He provides.
Problems are what we all face, and their solutions are what God provides. Have Faith, have Hope, and don’t despair – Jesus has the perfect skills, the perfect toolbox, and the perfect schedule to remedy what the locusts of life bring to us.
