Joel 2: 12“Even now,” declares the Lord  “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” 13 Rend your heart and not your garments.  Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. 15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly.16 Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. 17 Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, 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 was jealous for his land and took pity on his people….19 The Lord replied to them: 20 “I will drive the northern horde far from you, pushing it into a parched and barren land; its eastern ranks will drown in the Dead Sea and its western ranks in the Mediterranean Sea. And its stench will go up; its smell will rise.”

I’ve been quiet for a long time now, half of a year actually, though it doesn’t seem that long.  I’ve been quiet because life hasn’t been easy and I’ve been busy holding onto the Lord in the midst of the high and rolling waves.  There have been many challenges-  physical, world stuff, personal stuff, losing some I have loved dearly- several actually.  It’s been a tough 2014 and I think that has been true for many, not just me.  Honestly I’m not sure what is going on in the spiritual realm but the manifestations here on this planet are getting extreme.   My eyes have been on the world and then heavenward because mankind appears to be spinning out of control.  There is a sense that “normal” is going to be short lived and it’s only a matter of time before evil moves closer and closer to our safe bubbles of denial. But God reigns in our hearts and THAT is the answer.  It’s always the answer.  Yet,  our ears are buried in our iPods.  Our emotions are buried in the temporal instead of being focused on the eternal, our personal circumstances seem to be of utmost importance when they are not.   God help us to focus outward, on the larger picture.   Help us to focus on You and Your call on our lives.  To live for eternity and not the next car, house, vacation, etc. is the goal.

It’s time.  It’s time for Christians around the globe to earnestly and intentionally unite in seeking Jesus’ face on behalf of those in our family across the planet being persecuted.  It’s time for us to remember the scriptures in Joel and view them as the answer to what we are supposed to do.  There are locusts among us and this time they are human locusts!  It’s time to get outside of our own little worlds and see the larger picture.  Let’s call upon the name of God Almighty, corporately, to rescue those of us who need rescuing, to seek His face for strangers in our family across the globe who are in danger of losing their physical lives.  Praise God there is no danger of them losing their eternal place to any evil that exists on the planet,  as long as the blood of Jesus Christ has been received as payment for their sins.   How can we do nothing in the face of such evil?  It’s time to wake up.

Takeaway:  We must not be complacent in our prayer lives.   God is a mighty God and we are directed to call upon His name as we humble ourselves before His throne.  Humility and gratitude are the two most valuable assets of any Christian and the cornerstone of all spiritual warfare.    May He be praised!    Stand with me in prayer for Christians around the globe who are being persecuted, mocked, belittled, beheaded!   Our God will hear our prayers!    Gather your church, gather your friends, pray together!   Do something!  Use your voice and motivate!  

Prayer:  Dear God in Heaven, YOU alone are the Mighty One!  We come to you with contrite hearts, begging for Your intervention in the evil that is swarming our planet right now.  Drive the northern horde far from us!  We unite in our stand FOR you and not against you and seek Your face and Your mercy on Your children.   Be with us, sustain us, encourage us, lead us by Your spirit to pray as Your heart desires us to pray.    We stand firm in the knowledge that YOU are God and YOU are God alone!   We surrender to Your will and hold fast to You through all the trials this world has to offer.   Amen.