in You.

Today was the last CCF meeting of the school year - a pretty informal one, one with simple acoustic worship and just some members of our committee sharing about their experiences during summer away from school. It was just massively encouraging because they were so honest about their experiences back at their home churches, about how strange it was and how shallow it seemed sometimes; how they felt distant from their church friends and stilted in their spiritual walk, as if they were wracked with thirst and unable to find any respite.

This is something I've been nervous about recently. As the year draws to a close, thinking about going back to my home church and fellowship is kind of weird and scary at the same time. It's weird because it doesn't really feel like home anymore, and it's scary because I don't want to fall backwards off the tracks (spiritually). There's such a lack of accountability and real conversation in many of our home churches, and it's discouraging. Our CCF chair compared this to the plague of locusts in the book of Joel, when the people were starving, the animals were starving, and there was not a single living plant that the locusts had not ravaged - not only were the Israelites unable to eat, but because of their dying livestock, they were unable to make sacrifices to the Lord and worship Him ("Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the LORD." Joel 1:9).   Does it sometimes feel like it's so hard to get right with God, to worship at His feet, when we're in such dry circumstances?

That isn't an excuse. It says in Psalm 51:16-17: "You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." Further on in Joel, the Lord confirms this: "'Even now,' declares the LORD, 'return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.' 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." (Joel 2:12-13)

"Rend your heart and not your garments." Or, as my CCF chair put it, "God doesn't want your stuff, He wants you." We have to go to Him in prayer! What can we possibly do for ourselves in situations like these? Nothing. Any effort in and of ourselves is in vain. I say this because I've been there. Trying to do it on my own is tiring. It's like running on empty. It IS running on empty.

The end of this book is incredibly uplifting: "The LORD will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem; the earth and the sky will tremble. But the LORD will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel. Then you will know that I, the LORD your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her." (Joel 3:16-17)

Pray, pray, pray. The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it. He is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. We can do everything through Him who gives us strength, but apart from Him we can do nothing.