To win the big game, sometimes you’ve got to change your game.

For many, there is no bigger game than the Super Bowl. Most coaches will keep the same plays that got them there, to “dance with the one that brung ya.” But that is not always the best strategy. Sometimes the big game requires a big reverse.  

Such was the case on the day of the Prophet Joel. In Joel 3:10—a call to war—the head coach, God, called for his faithful to ready for a future prophetic battle between good and evil requiring a different game plan—a reversal in approach. War, not peace, will be the focus reversing the prophecy of peace called for in Micah by encouraging the nation to transform their agricultural tools of peace into weapons and change their rhetoric of the olive branch into a war cry of the hawk. Victory sometimes requires radical transformation. 

"Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, 'I am a warrior.'"  Joel 3:10 

The backstory is this: Joel 3 details God’s judgment on the nations who oppressed His home team.  God called for a radical transformation of their resources. Instruments normally used for farming grape vines and wheat sheeves will now be fashioned for flesh, for war, not peace. 

Secondly, this call to war calls for a proclamation of strength, a warrior, not a weakling. This is a reversal of language of peace in Micah 4. 

He will judge between many people and settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up swords against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Micah 4:3 

The point is: there comes a time for the language and tactics of harsh judgment –a time of “the Day of the Lord” — a fourth quarter time—when reconciliation and meekness has run its course. Retribution through strength sourced in God is the play when time runs out.  Strength through weakness is not an antiquated strategy.  Paul knew hardship.  In his dramatic Damascus reversal, he began a journey of strength through weakness. According to II Corinthians 12:9-11, Paul saw in a vision of a third heaven, an inexpressible view of victory, and could say with confidence: 

“That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, I am strong.  

It may appear that this strategy of strength through weakness is a losing battle when you consider how this elderly man was handled, thrown to ice. Click on photo: .https:/youtu.be/19c8NbetZcY?si=_abaDWKTDmRKxWoi.

The good news is protesters--the weak--armed with cell phones and signs were able to earn his release in 4 hours and the back down of 700 agents who left the city. You can say that they won the big game with a change in their game plan where the weak can say,

“I am a warrior.”