Today’s Bible Journaling is from Joel 2:23, “Rejoice, you people of Jerusalem! Rejoice in the Lord your God! For the rain He sends demonstrates His faithfulness. Once more the autumn rains will come, as well as the rains of spring.” (NLT) The New American Standard Bible (NASB) puts it this way, “So rejoice, oh sons of Zion, And be glad in the Lord your God; For He has given you the early rain for your vindication. And He has poured down for you the rain, The early and the latter rain as before.”
The prophet Joel was giving the people of Israel a message from God, encouraging them to turn their hearts to Him, and He would give them blessings far above anything they could imagine. God demanded obedience, and when they disobeyed and went after other gods, punishment was inevitable. But the time for punishment was coming to an end and God was pleading for His people to return to Him, and when they did, He would pour out blessings as the rain!
When I think of the blessings as of rain, my mind goes to a real gully-washer! Rain pouring out of the sky, so hard and so fast, one can not even see! That’s how I see God’s blessings. We may be in a time of trial, but that trial will not last forever, and God promises to bless us as only He can.
For me at this point in my life, trial comes in the form of pain, I have pain all the time. Yesterday was a prime example. I was pretty much laid up all day long with pain. The pain was so bad, I couldn’t even do my Bible Journaling, and spent the whole day on a heating pad stuck in my recliner. But I know this will eventually end…either in a complete healing from God here on earth, or when I meet Him face to face. My hubby spent yesterday praying for the pain to leave me. I must say, I still have pain, but it isn’t like it was yesterday, so there is my blessing. Learning to live with pain is a day by day process. But I have a God who promises me it will not always be like this, and I can praise Him because He will bless me one day with a pain-free life.
Each of us has trials or we are walking in disobedience. But God will walk through the trials with us, desires for us to turn to Him in obedience, and promises blessings like the rain. Some rain comes as a sprinkle, just barely noticeable, other rain showers come as a steady, quiet rain, still others are an outright downpour! God’s blessings are also like that. Some come quietly, and sometimes we don’t even recognize them as blessings from God, others come where we have no doubt that God was the source, and still other blessings fall so fast and so quickly, that we become overwhelmed with the enormity of the blessings God has for us.
Notice in our Scripture, God says He will pour down the rain “as before.” That is a promise for us to hold on to. He’s telling us that just as He has blessed us before, He will bless us again. When we doubt that God will bless us, all we need to do is look at what He has done in the past and know that what He did then, He will do again.
donnasmusings 