Day 3: Great Things

Joel 2:21

“Be not afraid, O land; be glad and rejoice. Surely the LORD has done great things.”

Okay, it’s one thing to ask us to not be afraid in the face of daunting circumstances. It is quite another to suggest that we should be glad and rejoice. Can you even imagine if someone made a public speech right now and said, “People of Earth, great news! There is a worldwide pandemic! Let’s celebrate the arrival of Covid-19!” Or perhaps the financial reporter is appearing on the news to let us know about how many people filed for unemployment this week. “The numbers are staggering! Rejoice!” Surely the prophet Joel got part of the message lost in translation. Maybe God was speaking about a situation far less dire than what we’re all facing.

If you read the book of Joel (go ahead and do that – it’s only 3 short chapters), the context here is a plague of locusts that devour everything in their path. All crops are destroyed and there is no food. A plague that has an entire nation of people fearing for their very survival should sound familiar to us. And yet this call to replace our fear with gladness and rejoicing. How is that even possible?

The end of the verse clues us in. Surely the LORD has done great things.

He has done great things. It is implied here that this means we can trust him to do great things again. The harder the circumstances, the more amazing it is when God does something dramatic. Just like we read about in Exodus when God led his people into seemingly inescapable danger in order to reveal his glory when he provided an escape, we know that the more impossible the situation, the more clearly we can see that the solution could only have come from God. God is a bit of a showoff in the best possible way.

When God shows up and shows off in the midst of frightening circumstances, we who know him are comforted and reminded of who he is. We also get one more reference point to remember the next time trouble comes – remember what God did last time? And those who don’t yet know him have a chance to see God’s power and mercy in remarkable and undeniable ways.

To be clear, I do not believe that God created the coronavirus just so that he could rescue us from it. That isn’t consistent with what we know of his character. But he is choosing to allow it and though I don’t pretend to understand his reasons, I do trust that he will use it for our ultimate good. With God nothing is ever wasted.

Just a few verses later in Joel 2 comes a more well-known passage that means a lot to me. “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten… You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you.” (Joel 2:25-26 NIV)

What a hopeful promise! Other translations use the word restore instead of repay. Nothing is ever wasted and God is able to restore what has been lost, even precious time. It may feel like we are spinning our wheels, stuck in quarantine, wasting our time at best and fearing for our lives at worst. But he who restores all things is still in control.

Therefore we can choose to silence our fear with rejoicing, for he has done great things. And we believe we’ll see him act again, even in this scary time.