Joel

He read in this book so many promises that I can take to heart. I really like the following verse in the King James better, here is what it says: Joel 2:25, "And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten..." We think time goes by and we lose it. We lose those years. However, we see in the Lord's mathematics, that he can do a time reversal. He can abundantly return to us the years that we think have been lost.

What a locust eats is gone. You have to wait till next year for the plants and crops to be regrown. If this same activity occurs over years, famine begins to set in and death eventually occurs. God is a God of growth and new beginnings though. He turns the years that were destroyed and he repays them. He will "repay" as it says in the NIV. I love that. God remembers. He remembers the years of sorrow (possibly caused by sin or neglect) and he repays what we deserve. This causes quite a bit of jubilation to come out of our mouths if we dwell on this characteristic!

Hosea

Hosea reconciles with his wife, Gomer. This might sound like a very normal thing in the world, but the crazy thing is, Gomer was a prostitute, and his story made it into the cannon of Scriptures. This is quite remarkable to me. God looked on this couple, and he even tells Hosea, 3:1, "Go show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adultress."

God is definitely a God of 2nd chances. He doesn't look on the outward, he looks on the inward heart. He sees our rebellion. He sees our sin, but he also sees the potential. God works in mysterious ways. Would I have put this story in the Bible? Probably not, however, in his infinite wisdom, we see that God is a God of forgiveness, of reconciliation and simply put, nothing we have done will preclude us from his love. I rejoice over this aspect of my God.

Daniel

Daniel is one of my favorite books. I love reading about the end times. There is so much information in this book about what is going to happen, but I also read of one of my favorite verses in all of scripture, Daniel 12:3. "Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever."

This is my life's quest: to be wise and to lead many to righteousness. This only occurs as I'm allowing the work of the Holy Spirit to be working through me. The only way that I can ever be wise is for His wisdom to be at work in me. On the other side, the only way that I am righteous at all is for his righteousness to be at work in me. The only way that this equation can work is that I'm allowing the cross to be the central focal point of my life.

Overall, I'm a selfish individual. Therefore, righteousness is not apparent, and I'm not leading anyone towards it, quite the opposite. To go the way of the cross is to surrender, to give up, to humble myself and put Christ at the center of my life. His ways, His ideas, His passion and His leading. This will allow His life to be at work: and his life was righteous.