Joel

The story of Joel shows how God is both gracious and full of justice towards his people. At the beginning, I was in aw of how God used a locust horde to wipe out the crops of Israel. Recently I watched a program on locust hordes. The show was informative on how locust hordes form and what their devastation on crops and the land looks like. So having watched the program on a locust horde devastation, reading about it in the Bible reminded me of what it actually looks like after a locust horde comes through an area. And not only did the locust horde affect the food, they affected the wine vineyards, which in turn affected a drink consumption. The water even dried up for the Israelites and their fields went up in flames. With all this destruction in the beginning of the story, I must ask what did Israel do, to stir up God's anger? Nevertheless whatever they did to stir up God's wrath, God warned Israel of an army that was coming to conquer them that would leave desolation in their wake. However He did use the prophet Joel to tell them to the wail and plead before the Lord, to have mercy on them. God then in turn did have mercy on them since He declared that He would have mercy upon them if Israel would repent and seek Him; which they did. Soon thereafter the land was restored in full, and the land was green and all the trees were ripe with fruit. However I must say that while reading this I have more questions than I had answers. For example why did God call them to arms when the verses after that speak of God's wrath on the earth? Still I must say that this passage of scripture creates more questions than answers.