evils of our own making: One Year Bible Reading for December 9

 Today we read these verses in the One Year Bible:

Joel 1:1-3:21
Revelation 1:1-20
Psalm 128:1-6
Proverbs 29:18 

Let's look at Joel. I forgot what Joel was about even though I've read it probably a dozen times, starting in college. Reading through the One Year Bible every year is a great way to keep yourself in its pages, and it keeps it interesting. When I got to the 4th verse, though, I remembered. 

It says, "What the locust swarm has left, the great locusts have eaten. What the great locusts have left, the young locusts have eaten. What the young locusts have left, the other locusts have eaten."

Locusts, everywhere. That's what Joel is about. It's a apocalyptic picture of the destruction of their livelihood. Joel is using the natural disaster that is happening all around them to teach them that God has judged their sins, but that He'll bring them through the present disaster.

We see some of this today. Even with locusts. If you look at the picture above, that's from modern times. Locusts have decimated crops in various parts of the world today. But even scarier is the fact that many governments are buying land in order to "combat climate change", but which could end up in food shortages throughout the world. While the world itself brought the disasters to men in ancient times, we bring our own destruction on ourselves today.

So what can we do about that? Well, we can pray. For good leaders. For good decisions. For the weakening of evil and the strengthening of good. We can vote. We can learn to be independent of the governments that increasingly demand complete dependence.

And we can draw close to Jesus. He will give us wisdom and show us what we can do in each circumstance to love people and to serve Him.

God, thanks for having everything in hand, from locusts to crazy governments.