ON THE VANGUARD

REND YOUR HEARTS
“Rend your hearts 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 2:13

While celebrating Yom Kippur just days ago, I found myself unable to take the day off as designated in the book of Leviticus. It is in this time that one is supposed to spend the day in prayer and in the Word. So from my desk at work, I turned on my ipod containing the spoken Bible. I felt led of God to begin with Hosea and listen to the spoken words of the minor prophets as the day passed. As the day went on, my attention would be caught by certain passages that stood out, or familiar verses I had heard before, but never quite knew where they were. Then, as I began to listen to the book of Joel, it seemed as though the whole of chapter 2 was beckoning for my full attention. Putting work to the side, I followed along and my eyes landed on Joel 2:13. “Rend your hearts 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.”
In Psalm 51:16-17, David records that the LORD does not delight in sacrifices, but rather desires a broken and contrite heart. Here, years later, Joel is alluding to the same concept. Joel is stating that God is not looking for our garments to be rendered, as was part of the custom in times of mourning, but instead He is looking for our hearts to be rendered. But what does it mean to ‘rend’? In the Hebrew, the term ‘rend’ is QARA, meaning to tear in pieces, rip out or rip open, or cut away. In this time of confession, Joel was saying to tear the heart as opposed to the clothes. Tearing the garments would be in vain, but tearing the heart open to expose the sin inside was what was truly desired by God, because it allowed Him access in to do away with the sin. God desired to show His grace, compassion, slowness to anger, and His love because in these ways He wanted to save the person from disaster.
But here is another point found in Joel 2:13. The prophet spoke to, “Return to the LORD your God…” ‘Return’ in the Hebrew is SHUWB, and it is pretty much an exact translation. It is defined as the turning back, the repair, or the refreshing of. While our hearts need to be torn to expose their fleshly desires and allow for the sin to be removed by God, that is not enough. Unless we return to Him, shuwb to God, and become refreshed in relationship with Him, we will only return to our sinful ways. God wants to show us His love and relent from the calamity that our sin will bring upon us. He wants to change our end result from sinner to forgiven.
So here is the challenge, plain and simple. Maybe you did celebrate Yom Kippur and under the atonement you are forgiven. Maybe even after celebrating you have already messed up and fell into sin again. Or maybe you did not celebrate the holy day, and the sin you are needing to confess is burning a hole in your chest right now. No matter which one of these you are under, the truth is the same. Rend your heart and return to God. Expose your heart so that He can cleanse you. But do not stop there. Come back to Him as well. It is not too late for Him to relent from the calamity, and change the end result of your life. He desires to show His grace, His compassion, His slowness to anger, and His love, but we first must rend our hearts and return to Him.