Amos 8-9

The last two chapters of Amos are a destroying and a rebuilding. I remember we took a group to West Virginia to do some mission work. My groups first assignment was to work on this old house that a family was currently living in. When we arrived we found the house in pretty bad condition. The tin roof was badly torn up. The ceiling was made of cardboard and plastic. There was no kitchen and the bathroom consisted of a tub with a water hose running in through a sizable hole in the wall. The entire front outside wall had about a foot of play (meaning I could push or pull the entire wall 1 foot in either direction). So, our question was, "how do we fix this?" Our host for the week (a godly man) said, "let's burn it down". My thought was I can't wait to burn someones house down for the Glory of God. How were we really helping? The family agreed and they moved in to a single wide trailer with some family, with the promise of rebuilding. We pulled all the tin off and lit it up. In the process we blew up the pump and destroyed their well. Way to do the Lord's work. I must admit I was pretty discouraged, but later that week our host received a call from another group out of Pennsylvania. The wanted to come and build a house in the area. They were coming in about 2 months and bringing a crew of 70 people and several contractors. Within 3 months this family had a brand new home. It was simple, but it was a mansion to them. Sometimes thing have to be torn down in our lives so that they can be rebuilt better than ever.