Photo by Charles F. Stanley.

Daily Devotion

Looking Forward

Because God promises a glorious future, Christians can find the strength to wait—even when it’s difficult.

January 16, 2024

Joel 1:1-20; Joel 2:1-32; Joel 3:1-21

More often than not, waiting involves a lot of stress—especially when we don’t know how long it will be until the holding pattern ends. During the wait, we sometimes turn away from God and yearn for a time when things felt easier. But what if we turned towards God and looked forward instead?

The prophet Joel spoke to God’s people during a challenging time when their land had been invaded by locusts. Livelihoods were destroyed by drought and pestilence, and people were starving. Those were days full of destruction, darkness, and utter gloom.

Yet God did not point them back to the good old days. Instead, He pointed them to the future, to Himself. He called them to return to Him and reminded them that a day of vindication and redemption would ultimately come. And while it’s true that “ultimately” could be generations away, there is comfort in knowing His promise of restoration is certain. On that day there will be tremendous rejoicing—vats will overflow and “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (2:32).

By turning our eyes forward towards that certain-yet-far-off day, we too may find the strength to keep waiting.

Bible in One Year: Exodus 1-3

1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:

2 Hear this, O elders, And listen, all inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this happened in your days Or in your fathers' days?

3 Tell your sons about it, And let your sons tell their sons, And their sons the next generation.

4 What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten; And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten.

5 Awake, drunkards, and weep; And wail, all you wine drinkers, On account of the sweet wine That is cut off from your mouth.

6 For a nation has invaded my land, Mighty and without number; Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, And it has the fangs of a lioness.

7 It has made my vine a waste And my fig tree splinters. It has stripped them bare and cast them away; Their branches have become white.

8 Wail like a virgin girded with sackcloth For the bridegroom of her youth.

9 The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off From the house of the LORD. The priests mourn, The ministers of the LORD.

10 The field is ruined, The land mourns; For the grain is ruined, The new wine dries up, Fresh oil fails.

11 Be ashamed, O farmers, Wail, O vinedressers, For the wheat and the barley; Because the harvest of the field is destroyed.

12 The vine dries up And the fig tree fails; The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree, All the trees of the field dry up. Indeed, rejoicing dries up From the sons of men.

13 Gird yourselves with sackcloth And lament, O priests; Wail, O ministers of the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth O ministers of my God, For the grain offering and the drink offering Are withheld from the house of your God.

14 Consecrate a fast, Proclaim a solemn assembly; Gather the elders And all the inhabitants of the land To the house of the LORD your God, And cry out to the LORD.

15 Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, And it will come as destruction from the Almighty.

16 Has not food been cut off before our eyes, Gladness and joy from the house of our God?

17 The seeds shrivel under their clods; The storehouses are desolate, The barns are torn down, For the grain is dried up.

18 How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle wander aimlessly Because there is no pasture for them; Even the flocks of sheep suffer.

19 To You, O LORD, I cry; For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness And the flame has burned up all the trees of the field.

20 Even the beasts of the field pant for You; For the water brooks are dried up And fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

1 Blow a trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, For the day of the LORD is coming; Surely it is near,

2 A day of darkness and gloom, A day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn is spread over the mountains, So there is a great and mighty people; There has never been anything like it, Nor will there be again after it To the years of many generations.

3 A fire consumes before them And behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them But a desolate wilderness behind them, And nothing at all escapes them.

4 Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; And like war horses, so they run.

5 With a noise as of chariots They leap on the tops of the mountains, Like the crackling of a flame of fire consuming the stubble, Like a mighty people arranged for battle.

6 Before them the people are in anguish; All faces turn pale.

7 They run like mighty men, They climb the wall like soldiers; And they each march in line, Nor do they deviate from their paths.

8 They do not crowd each other, They march everyone in his path; When they burst through the defenses, They do not break ranks.

9 They rush on the city, They run on the wall; They climb into the houses, They enter through the windows like a thief.

10 Before them the earth quakes, The heavens tremble, The sun and the moon grow dark And the stars lose their brightness.

11 The LORD utters His voice before His army; Surely His camp is very great, For strong is he who carries out His word. The day of the LORD is indeed great and very awesome, And who can endure it?

12 ``Yet even now," declares the LORD, ``Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning;

13 And rend your heart and not your garments." Now return to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness And relenting of evil.

14 Who knows whether He will not turn and relent And leave a blessing behind Him, Even a grain offering and a drink offering For the LORD your God?

15 Blow a trumpet in Zion, Consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly,

16 Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, Assemble the elders, Gather the children and the nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out of his room And the bride out of her bridal chamber.

17 Let the priests, the LORD'S ministers, Weep between the porch and the altar, And let them say, ``Spare Your people, O LORD, And do not make Your inheritance a reproach, A byword among the nations. Why should they among the peoples say, `Where is their God?'"

18 Then the LORD will be zealous for His land And will have pity on His people.

19 The LORD will answer and say to His people, ``Behold, I am going to send you grain, new wine and oil, And you will be satisfied in full with them; And I will never again make you a reproach among the nations.

20 ``But I will remove the northern army far from you, And I will drive it into a parched and desolate land, And its vanguard into the eastern sea, And its rear guard into the western sea. And its stench will arise and its foul smell will come up, For it has done great things."

21 Do not fear, O land, rejoice and be glad, For the LORD has done great things.

22 Do not fear, beasts of the field, For the pastures of the wilderness have turned green, For the tree has borne its fruit, The fig tree and the vine have yielded in full.

23 So rejoice, O sons of Zion, And be glad in the LORD your God; For He has given you the early rain for your vindication. And He has poured down for you the rain, The early and latter rain as before.

24 The threshing floors will be full of grain, And the vats will overflow with the new wine and oil.

25 ``Then I will make up to you for the years That the swarming locust has eaten, The creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, My great army which I sent among you.

26 ``You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied And praise the name of the LORD your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you; Then My people will never be put to shame.

27 ``Thus you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, And that I am the LORD your God, And there is no other; And My people will never be put to shame.

28 ``It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions.

29 ``Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

30 ``I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, Blood, fire and columns of smoke.

31 ``The sun will be turned into darkness And the moon into blood Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes.

32 ``And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD Will be delivered; For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem There will be those who escape, As the LORD has said, Even among the survivors whom the LORD calls.

1 ``For behold, in those days and at that time, When I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem,

2 I will gather all the nations And bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Then I will enter into judgment with them there On behalf of My people and My inheritance, Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations; And they have divided up My land.

3 ``They have also cast lots for My people, Traded a boy for a harlot And sold a girl for wine that they may drink.

4 ``Moreover, what are you to Me, O Tyre, Sidon and all the regions of Philistia? Are you rendering Me a recompense? But if you do recompense Me, swiftly and speedily I will return your recompense on your head.

5 ``Since you have taken My silver and My gold, brought My precious treasures to your temples,

6 and sold the sons of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks in order to remove them far from their territory,

7 behold, I am going to arouse them from the place where you have sold them, and return your recompense on your head.

8 ``Also I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the sons of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a distant nation," for the LORD has spoken.

9 Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare a war; rouse the mighty men! Let all the soldiers draw near, let them come up!

10 Beat your plowshares into swords And your pruning hooks into spears; Let the weak say, ``I am a mighty man."

11 Hasten and come, all you surrounding nations, And gather yourselves there. Bring down, O LORD, Your mighty ones.

12 Let the nations be aroused And come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, For there I will sit to judge All the surrounding nations.

13 Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread, for the wine press is full; The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.

14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

15 The sun and moon grow dark And the stars lose their brightness.

16 The LORD roars from Zion And utters His voice from Jerusalem, And the heavens and the earth tremble. But the LORD is a refuge for His people And a stronghold to the sons of Israel.

17 Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, Dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain. So Jerusalem will be holy, And strangers will pass through it no more.

18 And in that day The mountains will drip with sweet wine, And the hills will flow with milk, And all the brooks of Judah will flow with water; And a spring will go out from the house of the LORD To water the valley of Shittim.

19 Egypt will become a waste, And Edom will become a desolate wilderness, Because of the violence done to the sons of Judah, In whose land they have shed innocent blood.

20 But Judah will be inhabited forever And Jerusalem for all generations.

21 And I will avenge their blood which I have not avenged, For the LORD dwells in Zion.

Exodus 1

1 Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; they came each one with his household:

2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi and Judah;

3 Issachar, Zebulun and Benjamin;

4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

5 All the persons who came from the loins of Jacob were seventy in number, but Joseph was already in Egypt.

6 Joseph died, and all his brothers and all that generation.

7 But the sons of Israel were fruitful and increased greatly, and multiplied, and became exceedingly mighty, so that the land was filled with them.

8 Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.

9 He said to his people, ``Behold, the people of the sons of Israel are more and mightier than we.

10 ``Come, let us deal wisely with them, or else they will multiply and in the event of war, they will also join themselves to those who hate us, and fight against us and depart from the land."

11 So they appointed taskmasters over them to afflict them with hard labor. And they built for Pharaoh storage cities, Pithom and Raamses.

12 But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread out, so that they were in dread of the sons of Israel.

13 The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously;

14 and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them.

15 Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other was named Puah;

16 and he said, ``When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live."

17 But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt had commanded them, but let the boys live.

18 So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, ``Why have you done this thing, and let the boys live?"

19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, ``Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife can get to them."

20 So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, and became very mighty.

21 Because the midwives feared God, He established households for them.

22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, ``Every son who is born you are to cast into the Nile, and every daughter you are to keep alive."

Exodus 2

1 Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi.

2 The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months.

3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got him a wicker basket and covered it over with tar and pitch. Then she put the child into it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.

4 His sister stood at a distance to find out what would happen to him.

5 The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the Nile, with her maidens walking alongside the Nile; and she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her maid, and she brought it to her.

6 When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the boy was crying. And she had pity on him and said, ``This is one of the Hebrews' children."

7 Then his sister said to Pharaoh's daughter, ``Shall I go and call a nurse for you from the Hebrew women that she may nurse the child for you?"

8 Pharaoh's daughter said to her, ``Go ahead. " So the girl went and called the child's mother.

9 Then Pharaoh's daughter said to her, ``Take this child away and nurse him for me and I will give you your wages." So the woman took the child and nursed him.

10 The child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. And she named him Moses, and said, ``Because I drew him out of the water."

11 Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.

12 So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.

13 He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, ``Why are you striking your companion?"

14 But he said, ``Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and said, ``Surely the matter has become known."

15 When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.

16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock.

17 Then the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock.

18 When they came to Reuel their father, he said, ``Why have you come back so soon today?"

19 So they said, ``An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and what is more, he even drew the water for us and watered the flock."

20 He said to his daughters, ``Where is he then? Why is it that you have left the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat."

21 Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses.

22 Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, ``I have been a sojourner in a foreign land."

23 Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God.

24 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.

Exodus 3

1 Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

2 The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed.

3 So Moses said, ``I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up."

4 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ``Moses, Moses!" And he said, ``Here I am."

5 Then He said, ``Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

6 He said also, ``I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

7 The LORD said, ``I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings.

8 ``So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.

9 ``Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.

10 ``Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."

11 But Moses said to God, ``Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?"

12 And He said, ``Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain."

13 Then Moses said to God, ``Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, `The God of your fathers has sent me to you.' Now they may say to me, `What is His name?' What shall I say to them?"

14 God said to Moses, `` I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, ``Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, `I AM has sent me to you.'"

15 God, furthermore, said to Moses, ``Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, `The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.

16 ``Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, `The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, ``I am indeed concerned about you and what has been done to you in Egypt.

17 ``So I said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite, to a land flowing with milk and honey."'

18 ``They will pay heed to what you say; and you with the elders of Israel will come to the king of Egypt and you will say to him, `The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. So now, please, let us go a three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.'

19 ``But I know that the king of Egypt will not permit you to go, except under compulsion.

20 ``So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My miracles which I shall do in the midst of it; and after that he will let you go.

21 ``I will grant this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall be that when you go, you will not go empty-handed.

22 ``But every woman shall ask of her neighbor and the woman who lives in her house, articles of silver and articles of gold, and clothing; and you will put them on your sons and daughters. Thus you will plunder the Egyptians."

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