Wake Up Before It's Too Late | Joel 1 | Crossroads Daily

I have awesome friends. I have great family, all of them are blessings, and I'm thinking back on all of the times where they said something like, "Wake up, like in Joel." And I was like, "No." (all laughing) - I would like to stay asleep. - Man. - No, thank you. - This is the Crossroads Daily. No experts, no perfect people. Just honest conversations about what happens when the Bible shows up in real life. (upbeat music) Hey, I'm Chuck. - I'm Alex. - I'm Caleb. - I'm Arturo. - Thanks for joining us today for the Daily Bible Conversation. We are in a new book, The Book of Joel, or I should say The Letter of Joel, and it's a prophetic, lots of imagery. Caleb, like give us the rundown on Joel. Like what? - Help us, Caleb. - He's like, "Caleb, you're the Old Testament nerd. "Can you explain this, everyone?" Yeah.

(all laughing) Joel is a prophet in the Old Testament, obviously. And he's speaking to God's people, telling them that some bad stuff is gonna happen, right? And God's trying to get their attention because as a nation, they have turned their back on God. They're worshiping idols. Everything's gone haywire. They're not living like they know that they're God's people, which I often do as well. And so Joel is talking about locusts, who are gonna come and actually cause a physical famine. And also, you can understand the locusts as enemy armies, right? So there's a physical threat coming, like there's gonna be famine, whatever. And there's another physical threat right behind it that's even worse, which is a conquering army that's going to take these people into exile unless they turn and spoiler alert, they do not turn. - Yeah, yikes. - Man, I know, thank you, man. And all of that because they did not turn, so as you think about this, you know, we see this pattern over and over again, God's people drift, sometimes run away from him. But what are signs of spiritual drifting before you get to the pinnacle of it? What are some signs that we should be mindful of in our own lives or even in our own communities of spiritual drifting?

- Well, I mean, thinking of, I don't wanna jump too far into like the bugs or whatever, but I was a biology guy a long time ago. You know, like locusts are tiny, like they're not big, right? I mean, all bugs are kind of small. And they just take a little bit. And they take a little bit and they take a little bit. And before you know it, if you don't stop it, the whole field is gone. Now there's famine in the land, right? Like, and so I just think about when I compromise a little bit as a sign like that I'm heading in the wrong direction, right? Like, here's a perfect example. I get some freelance money for some job that I've done, right? I know because I honor God that I want to give the first 10% to him. - Well, it's not in my paycheck. Taxes aren't gonna know about it. - Right, it's like, it doesn't amount to enough that it's gonna be on any government form or whatever. I could like just deposit that straight into the account or I can honor God the way that he's asking me to honor him and give that first 10% back to him. And that's just a little nibble, man, you do that. And they nibble a little more and they nibble a little more and suddenly you're in a bad spot. - That's good, that's really good. I think it's Ernest Hemingway that talked about like how's a person lose their fortune or something like that?

And he said gradually, then suddenly. - Yeah, that's right. - And I think like that's how spiritual drifting goes. Like it's never, you know, I was talking about this. We hear lots of public stories of people who have tanked their lives and whether that's an affair or whatever. And I always say like, I wanna have enough empathy to understand no one woke up that day and said, you know what I wanna do today? - Right, ruin everything. - But it's the gradual. It's the choices to move away from community. It's the choices to have some secret relationship. It's the choices to have some part of your life that's not visible. And over time that leads to the spiritual decay that looks like the famine and looks like the, like that's exactly how it plays out for all of us in our lives. - Yeah, I find that if I'm not actively walking towards Jesus, then I, it's not that I'm walking away from him, but if I'm not actively walking towards him, I'm probably drifting away. And I think a lot of people and I probably used to think about following Jesus is like, how close can I get to the line of this rule? Like what, how far is too far? And really it should be the opposite of like, where can I just walk towards?

Where can I walk towards Jesus? And if I'm not doing that actively and trying to pursue him, That's like my, that's for me personally, that's like my little red flag, I think in my head, is as soon as like following Jesus is starting to feel like a chore, I think I'm probably doing it wrong. That for me means like, I might not, I might be drifting. That might be drifting for me. - That's good. Yeah, it makes me think I had a season a couple of years ago. I had started an organization and there was a ton of travel involved. And so like I was on the road like 80 nights of the year or something like that, it was way too much. And you know, what I started to see was I started to see how disconnected I was getting from like particularly close guy friendships. 'Cause I wasn't in town a lot. So lots of the things that was every Thursday I met with this person and did this or I was in this group. A lot of those started to peel away from my life. I mean, I was not in a good spot. I was not in a good spot spiritually. I was not in a good spot just like health wise. And you know, I actually wound up over time needing to change that role and get into a different role where I travel far less because all of that drifting,

all of the missing of community, all the missing of accountability in my life, I saw the devastation that I was physically playing on my body, on my mind, my anxiety, all of those things. And so, you know, for me that was a really significant moment of recognizing the gradually and the suddenly, right? And sometimes you got to make a significant change. You know, Joel is calling the people to repent. Like the solution to not getting the locusts, the solution to not gradually then suddenly falling off a cliff is to repent which means to change your direction. It means to go in a different direction. So I wonder when we recognize that something in our lives needs to change, what do we do about it? What do we do about that? What I should do more often times than not because I'm not going to sit here and say like I do it every time is tell people that I got to change because the only way I'm going to change is if I have people that hold me accountable to it. In a loving way, but they do it, but they do it. And I pick the people that I know are going to check me on it. And whenever I see them, how's that going? You want that. And I have to give them the permission to. Like I make it clear to them, hey you're my boy and I know you'll love me regardless but I'm asking that you have to. At this point they know, but when I started

having them be the people that's here that I got to change and ask that they would be the ones that could help me take accountability to that, I had to tell them I need you to tell me though. Like if I get offended, you even need to check me on that. I don't want to talk about that right now. It's fine, no, no, no, tell me how, press. That's good. That's how I should again, don't do it perfectly. But I know that that's what I got to do. - That's a good lesson though, yeah. - Dude this week over and over every day, there's been something about doing life with other people. Like the power of community. Like I feel like we're selling in Mark, Jesus is having the last supper with his disciples. He's going to pray with his disciples when he finally gets crucified. The core women are there. They didn't leave him behind. Like just over and over. And I think it just reiterates what you're saying, Arturo, like you have to have people with you. If it's a plan in your mind on your own to change something, it ain't going to work. - Not a plan, not a plan. - It ain't going to work, that's not a plan. Yeah, you got to tell people. A second thing for me is do it fast. - Oh, that's good.

- Do it fast. Like you don't need six weeks to change a thing. Change it today. - That's good. - Because if you don't, then you won't. - Yeah. - Man, that's really good. - Yeah. - I feel like I'm just chuckling because I'm like, I have some really amazing community in my life. I have awesome friends. I have great family. All of them are blessings. And I'm thinking back on all of the times where they said something like, wake up like in Joel. And I was like, no. (all laughing) - I would like to stay asleep, man. - No, thank you. And so I think for me, it's also like having those things in place, but there is like, there has got to be a willingness there to repent. Like I have to lay down my pride. (all laughing) I am not always as willing to do, but I have to. - Yeah. - I have to.

- Yeah. What does he say? Wake up you drunkards. (all laughing) Awake you drunkards and weep and wail you drinkers of wine. Like, man, we get intoxicated by comfort or pride or lust or fear or anger. I mean, we get intoxicated, right? And it's to your do it suddenly. Like, man, some of us, we need a cold turkey dry out. - Yeah. - We need to wake up. You talked about like waking up to our emotions. - Yeah. Well, and that's what's so great about repentance. Repentance doesn't mean you have to do it joyfully. I mean, that, I'm sure that would probably help, but this is about, like, repent, do something, but also, like, it's hard, so grieve. Like, go through the emotions of with other people and with God of like, ugh, like, this is gonna be, this is gonna be hard. So, like, take the time to grieve and, like, sit in those emotions, too. - That's so good. Man, I think when it comes to a book like this, it's easy to say, man, look at these people. I want us to read through Joel with this question in mind.

God, what are you saying to me? - Yeah. - God, how does this relate to my life right here and right now? My guess is, there is a place where God is calling you to wake up, where he's calling you to repent because he has something better for you, and maybe what he has for you is the prevention of you going off the cliff and experiencing the famine of a relationship or a spiritual life that is completely dry and bereft of his presence. So, let's wake up and let's lean in as we get into Joel. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)