Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness. – Joel 1:20

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 24, 2013): Joel 1

There is an argument that the Stock Market Crash of 1929 was not the real reason for the Great Depression – it was simply an unhappy coincidence. The reality of the Great Depression is that there probably was not a single cause. The Stock Market collapse in 1929 was just one of the events that became the cause of the Depression. Another factor was the drought that struck the prairies of Canada and the United States. The combination of a lack of rain and increased mechanization on the North American farms created a situation where the wind would simply blow away soil. Black Blizzards roamed the prairies as the wind churned up the dust of the fields to the point where the dust storms blackened the sky. In 1935, Edward Stanley coined the word “Dust Bowl” to describe the Black Blizzard that had happened in Boise City, Oklahoma. The name stuck. Officially the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres of land – or over 400,000 km².   For a time, it seemed as if Creation herself was crying out against the people of the world.

Joel was describing a time of deep problems in Israel. Joel himself does not seem to anchor his writings in any single time period, but one of the suggestions by scholars is that Joel lived and prophesied during the days at the end of the reign of Athaliah and in early in the reign of Joash of Judah – a time when Joash was still too young to reign for himself and it was considered to be a time of national panic in the nation.

Which is exactly what Joel seems to be describing. It is a time when Creation herself seems to be crying out against the people – or more concisely, it is a time when Creation herself seems to be crying out to God for relief. It is more than just a time of political oppression or just a time of national insecurity. The people are crying out for a relief that they know comes only from God, but they are not the only ones. All of the earth is crying out – the animals of the field pant for God, the streams have dried up because God has not sent the rain, and because the streams are dry, fire consumes the fields – everything is waiting for the next move of God.

It is one of the main themes of Joel. We, everything and everyone on this entire planet you have created, are waiting for God to move. Joel understands that there is no relief that we can have unless it comes from God. It is one of the great misconceptions of our time. We think that relief comes from the Government. We seem to believe that all of the bad that happens in our life is because of some decision our government has made – or has not made. But that places too much power in the hands of a group of fallible people sitting in a capital city. And because we believe that, we cry out to government officials for relief that they cannot give to us, because the power is not in their hands – it is in God’s.

I am convinced that creation is now, in this moment, crying out to God. Whether we know it or not, we are very much like the ones that Joel was writing to – we are the ones waiting impatiently for the next great move of God – waiting for a deliverance that can only come from him.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Joel 2