What goes around comes around!

Phew!! - just been reading all the books of the minor prophets in the Old Testament - some of it is pretty hard going I'm telling you!

I guess you could sum them up with a 'one-liner' for each of them - they all had a message to tell and guess what!! that message is still relevant today.

They all neatly appear - all six of them - just before the New Testament starts and there they cling onto history and still boldly proclaim God's message to all and sundry - yelling out to the world what will happen, what has already happened and to make sure we are ready for the finale!

First comes Nahum with his message of "WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND".

Reading Nahum you can take heart! - all injustice, unfairness, cruelty, rebellion against God, disobedience, bullying in fact anything that breaks the heart of God and His people will NOT go unpunished.

We can be confident by reading Nahum, that God will make all things right one day.

Every sin will and must be accounted for either at the foot of the cross when the person who has wronged you will accept the gift of forgiveness from Jesus and have their sins pardoned or....

A the judgement throne of Almighty God where they will have to give account of every thing done and said.

God is the only JUST JUDGE - His ways are perfect and although sometimes we can't really understand what is going on, take courage, be brave take one huge breath and be assured that our Father knows the end from the beginning - the BIG picture!!

We have all been hurt at one stage or another - we have had our hearts broken, been bullied, had heaps of unfairness dished out to us and generally felt depressed and alone.

Imagine how God feels! For as long as people have been on earth, He has been rejected, scorned, made a joke of, disobeyed, laughed at, insulted, ridiculed, ignored, misunderstood, forgotten and belittled!!

The list goes on and on and on - Yet he remains patient.

He shows us love, understanding and mercy - giving us opportunity after opportunity to repent and come back to Him.

So when God does get ANGRY it's probably not a bad idea to listen up - Old Nahum brought this message to Nineveh or Assyria - "Get Ready What goes round comes around!"

Next comes Habakkuk with His message of  "VIOLENCE: IT ISN'T FAIR"

Habakkuk wondered and questioned God as to why evil is allowed to win so often!

Of course we have never done that!! Yeah right!! - That is what we do best!

But after questioning God , Habakkuk concluded that God is in control, that there is a judgement coming and we had better praise God.

Habakkuk was in a horrible situation - he knew that Babylon was about to destroy Judah - he pleaded with God not to let it happen and the people to change - to get ready.

Babylon was probably one the most horrendous countries of their day - torturous, barbaric and showing no mercies to anyone - and here they were - about to carry off the people as slaves, killing and brutalising as they went.

Through all of this Habakkuk could still say "Though the fig tree shall not blossom and there is no fruit on the vine, the olives fail, the flocks die, no meat and no shelter I will still praise the Lord"

Now we may not tend sheep, own a vineyard or not even realise that figs grow on trees BUT we can still relate to what Habakkuk was saying here.

When we get downsized, when we get stressful and anxious, when we have been diagnosed with some terrible, horrible disease, when our budget zooms out of control, when the kids get sick and when we are laying awake at night desperately searching for solutions to what seem like endless problems - what then?

We certainly don't feel blessed BUT you know it is then at those very moments more than any others that God is the only stability you will find in life.

He can give us - you and me - the spiritual strength and emotional courage to keep going.

When you think of it - Jesus suffered terribly for us - He didn't die peacefully in His sleep not was He given a lethal injection and fell asleep before He died - and yet through all of His unbearable pain He never stopped praising is Father and handing it all over to Him.

Although we rarely admit to needing it - God's mercy, strength and stick ability is available to us on a daily basis - God virtually explodes with mercy - He loves mercy - He loves courage - he loves to share His strength with us.

God longs for us to bring all of our wounds and innermost thoughts to Him - He will extend His mercy, grace and strength to get us through the most horrendous events in our lives - even when things look their blackest.

So there we go - the first two "Minor prophets" in a nutshell - I have no idea why they are called 'MINOR' because their message is pretty 'MAJOR' if you ask me!

Nahum with his "What goes around comes around" and then Habakkuk's amazing "VIOLENCE: it is isn't fair"gives us two very awesome messages from these ancient and prophetic pages.

Nahum's message that all sin will be accounted for either at the foot of the cross or at the throne of God blows me away with it's simplicity yet is startling in it's truthfulness and still relates so much to today.

Habakkuk's determination to praise God even though things look their blackest also made me aware again of  God's mercy and of course on-going grace.

God is so Holy and Just and sees the 'big picture'.

Our Small world is shaped by what is happening to us today - whether good or bad - big or little. God's world is beyond our understanding - so we have to trust Him that He knows what he is doing and hand our entire lives over to Him.

So reading the 'minor' prophets has been an eye-opener for me - the messages contained there were so vital to that world at that time yet so relevant to today's world as well.

Take time to re-read them and I guarantee that you will be blessed as I was to realise that God has indeed got everything under control even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it.

God has our best interests at heart and even though sometimes our world may fall apart and praising Him seems like the last thing we feel like doing - we should try to keep in mind all the truths of the Bible and the blessings He has given us and praise (Just like Habakkuk) will be inevitable.

Next time two more of our MINOR prophets get on the starting block when we will look at Zephaniah and Haggai.

Catch up then.