June 27

Today hope has sprung with Micah. Let it spring in me Lord. The heart of God is ALWAYS to bring back His people. Judgment, exile, punishment is about teaching a people to obey, but more than that it is bringing people to the place of understanding of the love of God! How? If God just let His people do whatever they wanted forever, they would end up like those before the flood – everything they did and thought was continually wicked. It is His mercy that drives Him to judgment. If He never sent them into exile, then they wouldn’t have ever turned back to the Lord! There is a lesson in that for us.

As so many of the prophets do, they end with or at least lace their prophecies of judgment with God’s words of longing for reconciliation. Here the Lord is saying to Israel’s enemies, don’t gloat over them, they will make a comeback and you will go down for the count. He says that about me too. When I am struggling, when I am under it, when I am down, I will make a comeback. He will make sure of it!