Fear-FULL Hope

I was thinking a lot about the book of Hosea, how it's collected a lot of dust in my life, so I opened it up and found hope.
 
6: 1-3 Hosea
 
^ I will write it out in a bit. The book had many curses & blessings. From what I gathered, God is telling the people of Israel through Hosea (Joshua) that another nation will destroy them. And after the fact, God will be able to bless Israel again. The beginning of their end happened when Israel was introduced to other gods as they fought with different nations. As kings came & went, Israel became smaller and broke their covenant with God.

Brokenness was poured into Israel. Humility sprouted. Faith was desired again.

God tells His people that He will bring them health, but first Israel must try to 'know' God.

Even though this book is old testament, I am humbled by it's story. I didn't live in the mid-8th century... Jesus has come, has died for me and so there isn't some guy telling my home town that God is going to punish us. Makes me wonder how beautiful the community could be if we lived as though that could be a reality. Not living in fear of God, but living fearfully in God. Get the difference? Sometimes I wonder if having Jesus thrown into the mix makes God's Might and judgment diminish.

Now there' s a question of why I found hope in this book, because if I'm living in 2015 and don't need to worry about God's wrath being unleased why would I relate to this?

" Come, let us return to the Lord;
for He has torn us, that He may heal us;
He has struck us down, and He will bind us up.
After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him. "

Hope because we all leave. We get torn. We get struck down! Except it's not God doing it to us now. It's this wide world, it's broken like Israel was. But when people return to God, they are healed and bound together again. He is telling me through this passage that he is the reviver of our lives. He is powerful enough to raise us up out of the mud of this world when it becomes too thick. He just wants us to keep coming back.

Living fearfully allows us to remain in hope. Israel lost that fear. People today, lose that fear.

" Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord,
his going out is sure as the dawn;
he will come to us as the showers,
as the spring rains that water the earth. "

Consistent faith, like the sun rising and setting. Not being doubtful if the rain doesn't come for a while, it'll just stop all together. Faith that knowing God more, learning He comes in his time. He has a master plan to bless our lives. We just need to return to him. To fear.
 
Hosea reminds me of a verse I recently came across in Isaiah and I think it ties into what I am trying to say.

" I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born, says the Lord. "(66:9)

In these moments when we leave God's path & are struck, the pain we may find in our lives doesn't go without serving a purpose. God uses them to create something new for us. Just like God allowed Israel to be destroyed so that a new Israel could be born and blessed. A God fearing land. A beautiful nation. Just as we can live as God fearing people. Learning it's importance from this story. And finding hope in the power of God.

I hope this made sense. I really like Hosea.