Love Joel

3: 9 Proclaim this among the nations:

Prepare for war!

Rouse the warriors!

Let all the fighting men draw near and attack.
10 Beat your plowshares into swords

and your pruning hooks into spears.

Let the weakling say,

"I am strong!"

Upon re-reading this whole passage..., it didn't mean what I thought it meant. But I do like what it does mean. I still like how it sounds.

I wanted this verse to say: "RISE UP MIGHTY WARRIORS!! BEAT YOUR RUSTY OLD BENT TOOLS INTO SPEARS AND FIGHT!!" "FIGHT AND USE WHAT EVER YOU HAVE LAYING AROUND! FIGHT AGAINST THE ENEMY" But that's really not what it says. It says fight how you will, bend your lame excuses into weapons but you are going to war with me over your wickedness and I'm gonna win. There is a bounty of evil that is to be harvested an judged.

11 Come quickly, all you nations from every side,
and assemble there.
Bring down your warriors, O LORD!
12 "Let the nations be roused;
let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat,
for there I will sit
to judge all the nations on every side.
13 Swing the sickle, for the
harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes,
for the winepress is full
and the vats overflow—
so great is their wickedness!"
14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of
decision! For the day of the LORD is near
in the valley of decision.
15 The sun and moon will be darkened, and the
stars no longer shine.
16 The LORD will roar from Zion
and thunder from Jerusalem;
the earth and the sky will tremble.
But the LORD will be a refuge for his
people, a stronghold for the people of
Israel.

I was looking for something to pick us up. Not beat us down. Church is whiny lately. Everything is sadness. Everything is trial. And SO much so that it is depressing me a bit.

I am a wreck and so are my friends. Some of us are so hurting and broken and pathetic. We all know who Jesus is. If we knew healing would it be any different? Would we be whole-er? Do you ever look at someone else and say. That person is whole. Not really. I used to think those people existed, but I was very wrong. We are not capable. Does the surface of a person actually change when the heart is redeemed? It must. But you can't do it backwards. The heart must change first. Otherwise the surface works are pecked out by the black crows of criticism and the world. The world is aching and it needs it's Jesus. It's comfort. It's hope.

13Then Jesus said to them, "Don't you understand this parable? How then will you
understand any parable? 14The farmer sows the word. 15Some people are like seed
along the path, where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and
takes away the word that was sown in them. 16Others, like seed sown on rocky
places, hear the word and at once receive it with joy. 17But since they have no
root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of
the word, they quickly fall away. 18Still others, like seed sown among thorns,
hear the word; 19but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and
the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.
20Others, like seed sown on good soil, hear the word, accept it, and produce a
crop—thirty, sixty or even a hundred times what was sown."

Yeowsah. Just cut myself on a thorn.