Through the prophet Joel, God calls his people to return to him saying, “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning”. God wants them to feel the pain of their parched hearts and long for him. We cannot receive God in complacency. He will not be second to any other desire. Either we desire him above all, or it isn’t him we desire. Joel sees what happens when God’s people seek him in this way: “He has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.” Early rain (yōreh) fell in autumn, softening hard summer soil so fields could be ploughed and seeded. Latter rain (malqōsh) fell in spring just before harvest, ensuring grain would mature and fill out. So, Joel says, evoking the image of lifegiving rain, “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh”. This outpouring would soften hearts so the seed of the word can be seeded. But the Spirit would also bring fruitfulness. The result, says Joel, is that all God’s people would fulfil a prophetic-messenger role previously only given to a few: “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.” We should not divide the work of the Spirit into stages or experiences. Seek God, not experiences. But the Holy Spirit is given to us in ever increasing measure as we seek him. And the result should be increasing fruitfulness. Seek God therefore with desperation so that you might live fruitfully.
Ask God to rain his Spirit on your dryness and make you more fruitful.
Read Joel 2:12-32.
