God Shatters To Restore!

Reading:  Amos 5 - 9
My Verse:  5:8  "Seek Him Who made the Pleiades and Orion, Who turns the shadow of death and deep darkness into morning and darkens the day into night, Who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth - the Lord is his name - "

This passage brings to mind a pop song that used the phrase 'love cuts deep'.  I don't think they were thinking of God's Love which cuts ever so deeply!  "For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (souls) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thought and purposes of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)

Amos portrays Your deep, passionate, and vibrant love so well, Lord God.  You shatter, but only to restore!  There is a purpose in all that You do!

The saddest verse here is 8: 11, 12.  "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord God, when I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but [a famine] for hearing the words of the Lord.  And [the people] shall wander from sea to sea and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and  fro to seek the word of the Lord [inquiring for and requiring it as one requires food], but shall not find it."  Because Israel constantly rejected Your Word, You will take it away from them.

There is no getting away from Your punishment. (9:1-10)  And so, Lord, You cry out to us, "Seek Me and you shall live!" (5:4)

Yes, You do punish, but it is always towards restoration, unless of course one rejects You until the very end.   And, well, that is the final judgement and how I do pray for loved ones that they will not be in the wrong place on that final judgement day.

"On the glorious splendor of Your majesty and on Your wondrous works I will meditate." (Psalm 145:5)

Ditat Deus - God Enriches!