God wants our heart

“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.” Joel 2:13
Sometimes God takes drastic measures to get our attention. When the Israelites turned away from Him, giving Him lip service while worshipping their idols, He allowed them to be attacked and besieged by their enemies. Ultimately, He allowed them to be taken away into captivity in foreign lands. The prophet Joel was writing at a time when Jerusalem was under siege by the Babylonians. But God said there was still hope, if they would just return to Him. This had happened once before, when the Assyrians had conquered the Northern Kingdom and were besieging Jerusalem. Hezekiah, the king at the time, prayed to God, the people repented, and God sent the destroying angel to decimate the Assyrian army.
When it all boils down, God wants our heart, not our outward actions only. We can do all kinds of things outwardly – rending our garments, as it were (a sign of mourning and distress) – but if our heart isn’t in the same place, then nothing has really changed. God doesn’t delight in seeing us go through hard times. He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. And He will relent from sending calamity, if we would just repent and get back on track with Him!