Joel 2 - The Rules of the Game
Yesterday, I posted on The Game of Life. Well, the next scripture on righteousness explains to us some of the rules.
 11 The LORD thunders
      at the head of his army;
      his forces are beyond number,
      and mighty are those who obey his command.
      The day of the LORD is great;
      it is dreadful.
      Who can endure it?- - -
 17 Let the priests, who minister before the LORD,
      weep between the temple porch and the altar.
      Let them say, “Spare your people, O LORD.
      Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn,
      a byword among the nations.
      Why should they say among the peoples,
      ‘Where is their God?’ ” - - -
 18 Then the LORD will be jealous for his land
      and take pity on his people. 19 The LORD will reply to them:
      “I am sending you grain, new wine and oil,
      enough to satisfy you fully;
      never again will I make you
      an object of scorn to the nations. 20 “I will drive the northern army far from you,
      pushing it into a parched and barren land,
      with its front columns going into the eastern seaÂ
      and those in the rear into the western sea.
      And its stench will go up;
      its smell will rise.”
      Surely he has done great things. 21 Be not afraid, O land;
      be glad and rejoice.
      Surely the LORD has done great things. 22 Be not afraid, O wild animals,
      for the open pastures are becoming green.
      The trees are bearing their fruit;
      the fig tree and the vine yield their riches. 23 Be glad, O people of Zion,
      rejoice in the LORD your God,
      for he has given you
      the autumn rains in righteousness.Â
      He sends you abundant showers,
      both autumn and spring rains, as before.
It’s basically a cycle. God puts us on the board, and gives us knowledge of Him. However, we don’t see Him. He had a piece on the board, but He doesn’t right now. He didn’t when Joel 2 was written.
When the people of a land forsake Him, He will wait until their appears to be no chance of them coming back. At that point, He starts across the land, decimating it. Seems cruel from our point of view, but that’s because we’ve forgotten that it’s just a game. We think that this life is it. Frankly, He’s just removing stalemated pieces from the board. However, not all hope is lost.
For those of us with some God-consciousness left, when we see Him clearing the board, we have a chance to come back, a chance to un-forsake Him so to speak. And for our sake, God will cease and desist from clearing the board. Instead, He will start placing things in the way for us to notice, blessings in fact, to make getting to the end of the game easier for us.
God has cleared the board entirely when He sent the flood… well, except for Noah. Noah’s instructions were to build an ark, and so the game went on. God promised He would never clear the board via flood ever again. Of course now, we have flood insurance, Tsunami watches, and mission trips to help flood survivors.
God stopped the Tower of Babel’s construction, which was meant to reach up to God from the gameboard, by confounding their language. Of course, today we translators and know each other’s languages, and there are sky scrapers reaching up from the board all over Earth.
God has allowed the thinning out of the board via plagues, but now we have inoculations, immunization programs, and even missions trips to protect the poorest of the world.
And so it goes.  On a certain level, we keep protecting ourselves from God’s cleansing. Yet, I don’t think He expected anything else. I mean, we hate death and destruction, and we love life. I don’t any of us really thinks of ourselves as thwarting God’s will, but as expressing love and kindness, providing hope to our fellow man… and it is that intention, whether we be Christian or not, that keeps God from clearing the board once and for all… however much we kill ourselves by ignoring Him, biting the hand that feeds us, love and compassion continues to be spread to the poorest of the lands. But is it really love, or is it self-importance? I’d call it a mix… and I know God sees it for what it is.
And so it goes. God refraining, and refraining. Well, his wrath is building up, and consequently so is His love. Intense emotionality comes with both sides of the spectrum. As people, we forget that. We simply say: anger bad, happy good. Well, that isn’t correct. Wickedness bad, righteousness good! And just as wickedness can come through anger or happiness, so can righteousness. It’s the only way to be balanced, and God is nothing if He is not balanced… and boy is He balanced!
And so while God refrains from the clearing the board, the Godless will continue to grow… and God will bide His time, as church looks for as many as they can who would love God and help hold off His judgement. However, we His Church will not hold off forever. Just as He reached a point when He hurried Lot and his family out of Sodom and Gomorrah, so he could clear that part of the board, so will He reach a point when He hurries out all of His faithful and clears the board once and for all.
In the meantime, what are we to do? We are to love, because it is God’s judgement that is coming, not ours. Our task to love Him with all our might, and love our neighbor as ourselves. That is what we are to do. And God will shower us with righteousness. And we comes for us, and hurries us out of the room so He can clear the board, let’s make sure that as many as can hear His message, do.