Pray for Rain || Joel 2:23 || Manna for the Mind #111

Welcome to Day 111 of the “Manna for the Mind” devotional! This series is about taking scripture passages (typically 1-3 verses) and building our understanding of their teachings through their context and connecting scripture. I believe that doing this helps us understand how to be the type of human that God created us to be.

Today’s passage is Joel 2:23. We’ll discuss the importance of celebrating God’s provision.

Joel 2:23

AMP	NLT	MSG
23 So rejoice, O children of Zion, And delight in the Lord, your God; For He has given you the early [autumn] rain in vindication And He has poured down the rain for you, The early [autumn] rain and the late [spring] rain, as before.	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.	23 Children of Zion, celebrate! Be glad in your God. He’s giving you a teacher to train you how to live right— Teaching, like rain out of heaven, showers of words to refresh and nourish your soul, just as he used to do.

I’m not used to having a passage from one of the minor prophets like this. Let’s start by gaining some insight into the story surrounding our focus verse, and then we’ll dig deeper into the verse itself.

Who is Joel? He was a prophet, and he had a son named Pethuel. That’s about it, for sure. He might have lived in Jerusalem since he was addressing the people of Judah. Overall, he spoke of a warning and hope to these people. He’s showcasing how God is both our almighty judge and very merciful, wanting to bless those who trust him. Joel starts this book by describing a terrible plague of locusts covering the land and destroying crops. This plague was a warning to symbolize the future “day of the Lord.” Joel wants the people to repent and turn back to God.

Joel 2 describes the locust invasion (vs. 1-11). It will be a dark and dreadful day that no one has seen before. They destroy everything in front of them and leave the destruction behind them. They are calculated, invasive, and dreadful. With this, Joel says that his audience should repent. (vs. 12-17) He doesn’t want to see the physical signs of repentance but wants to see the excellent heart posture change. He describes God like Moses did, “…merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.” (Exodus 34:6, 2:13b). With this God, Joel wants people of all generations to come against and ask God to save them. God responds (vs. 18-27) by sending them enough grain, wine, and olive oil to provide for them. God will send away those who are invading. God will restore their land and provide the water to grow their crops. God saw their true, authentic, repenting nature and will bless them with what they lost and then some. This is where we find our focus passage and an important message we need to cling to.

God will provide the rain, but the harvest is a joint effort. The rain he sent to the people of Judah was a sign of faithfulness. They were supposed to plant and prepare their crops as they usually would, and God would provide their water, and their blessing would be abundant. Sometimes, we can pray for God to do whatever we need, but we will still have to work towards it and have faith that God will do his work in the background. God is not a genie that we make wishes to that get immediately granted, but a partner who will guide us on the right path. A partner that will call out when we’re not thinking or acting right. A mentor who will give us advice at points of chaos. We need to trust in him, believe that he will do what he does, and have faith that we can do what we need because of what he does. This trust and faith in God’s plan should reassure you and give you confidence in your journey.

Father God, thank you for being our ultimate provider. We often think that you’ll just give it to us when we ask for something. You invite us to ask, but your gifts will come if it’s a part of your plan for us. Help us to pray for rain. Ask for everything without hesitation, and trust that it will happen if it’s part of your plan for us. Help us to view the things we don’t get as your salvation that spared us from potential pain and evil. It’s in your name, we pray. Amen.