July 26 | Bible in a Year: Psalms 40-42; Acts 27:1-26

A Softened Heart

Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. Joel 2:13

Angela sailed into Dunkirk on a beautiful summer’s day. As she looked over the railing into the sea, a strange thought popped into her mind, namely that her dad had spent hours in this water not knowing from one second to the next whether he would live or die.

So profound was this thought that Angela felt like she’d been hit by a thunderbolt. Was God’s Holy Spirit behind this? She felt a deep sense of regret and remorse—mainly because, as a teenager, she had disparaged the annual Remembrance Sunday church services to her father. That moment of conviction led Angela to repent. Suddenly she felt forgiven and free. Sadly, though, she wasn’t able to apologise to her father, as he had died years earlier.

Angela reflected on a passage from the Old Testament book of Joel where God had called His people to repentance for their sins: “Return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12). Even as God helped Angela to soften her hard attitude, so He had called His people to express remorse and sorrow for their sins (v. 13). Yet God reminded His people that He is slow to anger and abounds in love (v. 13).

God continues to help us clear out any harmful attitudes or past sins that can bog us down so that we too may have pure hearts. We can trust Him to respond when we repent.

By Amy Boucher Pye

REFLECT & PRAY

How do you react when you feel convicted over wrong actions? How have you experienced God’s forgiveness and grace, and what difference has that made to you?

Forgiving Father, You don’t want me to be burdened by my sins. Reveal them to me, that I might confess them and enjoy Your grace and forgiveness.

SCRIPTURE INSIGHT

Describing a coming “day of the Lord” (Joel 2:1) in which God would both decisively deal with evil and bring salvation to the world, Joel urged God’s people to repent and pray. For those in rebellion against God, the “day of the Lord” is a cause for alarm and fear (v. 1), “a day of darkness and gloom” (v. 2). “The day of the Lord is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it?” (v. 11 ). But soon after these ominous words, Joel described an entirely different way God’s people could experience this “day.” Joel reminded his hearers of who God revealed Himself to be to Moses—“gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity” (v. 13). This was a God who would respond to their repentance not by bringing destruction but by providing restoration and abundance (vv. 14, 21–25).

Monica La Rose

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