Joel 1:8-14
8 Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth
for the bridegroom of her youth.
9 The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
from the house of the Lord.
The priests mourn,
the ministers of the Lord.
10 The fields are destroyed,
the ground mourns,
because the grain is destroyed,
the wine dries up,
the oil languishes.
11 Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil;
wail, O vinedressers,
for the wheat and the barley,
because the harvest of the field has perished.
12 The vine dries up;
the fig tree languishes.
Pomegranate, palm, and apple,
all the trees of the field are dried up,
and gladness dries up
from the children of man.
A Call to Repentance
13 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests;
wail, O ministers of the altar.
Go in, pass the night in sackcloth,
O ministers of my God!
Because grain offering and drink offering
are withheld from the house of your God.
14 Consecrate a fast;
call a solemn assembly.
Gather the elders
and all the inhabitants of the land
to the house of the Lord your God,
and cry out to the Lord.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Joe 1:8–14.
Abba,
Sin is evil.
The curse is heinous.
Why does it take such devastation to shatter the hardness of our hearts?
Why does it take such extremes to awaken my heart to the cold reality of its own indifference and apathy?
Why, after have seen and tasted of the glories of Your being, do I ever find myself slipping back into such a state?
When seen through the lens of relationship and intimacy, it is not hard to see how the judgment and wrath You send is an act of love intended to draw us back. But devoid of such relationship and intimacy, it is only seen as malice and cruelty. Oh how it breaks my heart when I view it as anything other than unconditional, limitless love intended to draw us, to draw me to repentance and intimacy with you.
The curse of sin, the greatest curse of sin is truly seen in the hardness of heart that turns us away from You, Abba. This is the real travesty, the real disgrace. And THIS is what necessities the use of hardship, suffering, and devastation. For the hardness of heart, the darkness and terror of sin is only seen clearly in the destructive wake that it leaves. Love exposes that devastation and shows us the better way, the way of repentance.
It is hard, because of our sinful hearts, to see such judgement and destruction as an act of love, but it is, isn’t it? Its intent is to draw us back to You, to the safe haven of intimacy with You. Its intent is to provide the truest form of protection through intimacy with Your person and being.
Oh how my heart grieves that such measures are needed. Why, oh why, Abba, much this be the path, the course! It is so messy, so dirty, so hard. Why cannot our hearts just be knit to Yours without ever having to turn back, to fall away, to rebel? Why, oh why, must this hardship and this struggle endure?
I know the answers…
I know the enjoyment of the relationship will be much more full and rich in the end as a result of the journey…
I know the relationship must be tested…
I know the authenticity of our faith and devotion grows stronger in the flames of fire…
I know that the rebuke of our sin is part of the cleansing process and does indeed make intimacy that much deeper…
But oh, Great Father, how my heart aches for the suffering to end…how my heart aches for the duplicity of our passions to be eradicated. How I long for my heart to have one and only one singular passion directed wholly at You and You alone. How I long for that to be true for all Your children. How I long for our war with sin to be put to a permanent end! How I long to dance in heaven that the Devil and his hordes of unholy angels are cast into Hell never more to disrupt Your beautiful creation AND that we might enjoy unfettered intimacy with You!
This epic in Joel is too common a theme in scripture. It is too common a theme in my life. It is too common a theme in the world You have created. I ache for its end. I am weary and tired of enduring my own hard heart and I am weary and tired of watching the devastation of our struggle against sin.
Thank you for Your graciousness in delaying Your return that men might be afforded the opportunity to repent and to grow. Thank You for Your graciousness in sending rebuke, discipline, judgement, destruction as a means to awaken the coldness of our hearts to the warmth of Your grace and love. Oh that our hearts might be warmed and softened such that little to no extremes are necessary but that only a still small voice is all it takes to turn our hearts away from sin and back to You. Protect us from the necessity of such extremes for these extremes are indicative of the depth of hardness.
Show us our hearts. Make us humble and meek to behold what You show. Make us to know such depth of intimacy with You that we never desire to depart. Eradicate the need for such devastation as we yield our hearts joyfully and delightfully to You.
A Singular Passion 