Even Now
READ
Joel is writing to people in crisis. A devastating locust plague has stripped the land bare, and Joel interprets it as a spiritual alarm — a wake-up call to return to God before something worse arrives. But the response God asks for is not what you might expect. He doesn't call for bigger sacrifices or louder prayers. He asks for something much harder: an honest heart.
Let’s take a moment to read Joel 2:12-13:
"'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."
REFLECT
I'll be honest with you — this verse stopped me when I first sat with it this week.
"Rend your heart and not your garments." In the ancient Near East, tearing your clothes was the recognized public display of grief and repentance. It was visible. It was dramatic. It signaled to everyone around you that something serious was happening. And God looks at that practice and essentially says: I'm not impressed. I've seen the torn garments. I want to know what's happening underneath them.
That hits closer to home than I'd like it to. Because honestly? Outward repentance is easier. It's easier to say the right words, to show up in the right places, to perform the motions of someone who is genuinely turning back to God — than it is to actually do the interior work of turning. It's easier to look repentant than to be repentant.
And I think a lot of us — if we're being real — have gotten quite good at the garment-tearing version of faith. We know how to sound sorry. We know how to frame a prayer that checks the boxes. We know how to participate in a worship service in a way that looks engaged, even when our hearts are somewhere else entirely. The performance of repentance can become its own way of avoiding repentance.
Rending your heart is different. It's slower, less visible, and considerably more uncomfortable. It means actually letting yourself feel the weight of what your sin has cost — not just acknowledging it intellectually, not just adding it to the confession list, but grieving it. It means bringing your whole self to God, not just the presentable version. The tired version. The confused version. The version that keeps making the same mistakes and doesn't fully understand why.
What I find so moving about this passage is the two-word phrase that opens it: "Even now." Even after the locusts. Even after the devastation. Even after whatever you've done or left undone or let harden in your chest over time — even now, return. God is not standing at a distance waiting to see if your repentance is good enough before He opens the door. He's calling you back before you've even cleaned yourself up.
And then look at why. Not because you've earned it. Because He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. The basis for your return is never your performance — it's always His character. You don't have to rend your garments to impress Him. You just have to rend your heart and trust that the God waiting on the other side of your honesty is exactly who He says He is.
RESPOND
Take a moment to process what God might be leading you to do in light of what you read.
Where in your life might you be performing repentance rather than actually practicing it — going through the motions of turning back to God without doing the real interior work? What would rending your heart look like there?
"Even now" implies it's never too late to return. Is there an area where you've assumed you've drifted too far, waited too long, or failed too many times for God to genuinely welcome you back? How does this passage speak to that?
God's invitation to return is grounded in His character — gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love. Do you actually believe that's who you're returning to? What makes it hard to trust that on a given day?
REST
Take a moment to rest in God’s presence and consider one thing you can take away from your time reading, then close your devotional experience by praying:
God, I don't want to just look like I'm returning — I want to actually return. Tear through whatever in me is performing instead of surrendering. I come to You not because I've gotten it right, but because You are gracious and compassionate and abounding in love. Even now, I'm turning back. Meet me here. Amen.