May 18, 2021: Day 73 – Amos 4

Amos is not happy with how Israel and Judah have turned their backs on God.  What is especially interesting is about what he is most upset.  Look at vs.1 where we read that they oppress the poor and crush the needy.  This is enough to force God to draw people out of the land and into captivity, which is indeed what happened.  You can see what God is able to do and the lengths to which God would go in order to bring his people back.  He tries with the old carrot and the stick approach.

God has given enough bread for everyone, but they did not attribute their needs being met as coming from God.  They were able to see that some cities received rain and others were in drought, but they did not attribute that to God.  They were able to see the terrible things that happened to them: pestilence, young men killed, horses carried away, towns overthrown and devoured with fire.  Yet even in all of this there is not attribute to God as the one who is behind all of it.  It just happened by chance, goes the thinking.  There is nothing to see and nothing to learn in all of this.

I wonder if once we make our way through all of this if we will have the same thoughts.  Look at what has happened around us: a plague has come upon our people in the form of a virus, families are divided among themselves, the nation is eyeing fracture that is so serious it makes us wonder how long can this last?  Is God at work, and if so, how do we learn from it?  And if not, why not?