It is so important for young children to be reminded how full of rottenness they are, how deserving of annihilation. Deserving from birth.
But little children don't understand what annihilation means. Generally though they know what a horse is and it's fairly easy to visit some stables or a gymkhana and get right up close to some horses so they can see how big they are.
In there among the hooves paves the way for understanding what it must be like to see a whole bloat of the things roaring up from the sea like frenzied hippopotamuses and you can't do anything about it because you have offended God.
God who only wants your love but you can't love Him because you're rotten. You leave God with no choice but to annihilate you.
HABAKKUK 3 KJV
15-16 Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters. When I heard, my belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself, that I might rest in the day of trouble: when he cometh up unto the people, he will invade them with his troops.
But because you are rotten what choice does God have? There's nothing you can do about it. God cannot put up with you you are so disgusting to Him and He has no option but to destroy you.
After He's done that it will start to hurt A LOT.
"Mummy, Mummy," you will cry. "Why does it hurt
so much?" but there will be no Mummy. You will be told to stop crying and you will be hurt some more. And you will try to be brave because that's what Mummy would want but they just hurt you more and more and you can't bear it and fall down sobbing "I want to go home!" but this is your home now and they press a button and the floor you're lying on becomes electric and red hot and it burns and burns and spikes dig into you and the spikes are hot too and you just want to go to sleep or wake up or
anything but this pain and you will never sleep again.
God just wants you to love Him. When He visits there is disease and red hot coals and horns growing out from His hands but even before you were a tiny baby you had rejected Him. "NO, God," you had said "I'm not going to love you!" and you can't remember that but that is why you're rotten. Have you ever seen rotten animals on the road, or rotten fish behind the markets? That's what you smell like to God. How can He love someone so horrible?
That's why He sent Jesus.
When God reaches out to you with those hands don't you want Him to lift you up and hold you close to Him? You don't deserve that, but if you accept Jesus that can be your reward. Forever.
18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.
It's up to you. You have a choice. You can be thrown into a big hole instead with the spikes and the hurting things if you prefer. As I say, it's your choice. And that is the message I see in Habakkuk, a really terrific book and I can thoroughly recommend it for bedtime reading.
Here is the whole book, and Zephaniah.