Prayers from Amos

Amos 4:9-13

“Many times I struck your gardens and vineyards,
    destroying them with blight and mildew.
Locusts devoured your fig and olive trees,
    yet you have not returned to me,”
declares the Lord.

¹⁰ “I sent plagues among you
    as I did to Egypt.
I killed your young men with the sword,
    along with your captured horses.
I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps,
    yet you have not returned to me,”
declares the Lord.

¹¹ “I overthrew some of you
    as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.
You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire,
    yet you have not returned to me,”
declares the Lord.

¹² “Therefore this is what I will do to you, Israel,
    and because I will do this to you, Israel,
    prepare to meet your God.”

¹³ He who forms the mountains,
    who creates the wind,
    and who reveals his thoughts to mankind,
who turns dawn to darkness,
    and treads on the heights of the earth—
    the Lord God Almighty is his name.

‘I have done…yet you have not returned to me.’ The refrain of yesterday and today. Despite God’s actions people have not turned back, have not humbled themselves. God is calling people to return to Him. Yes, He has acted because of sin on our part but He does not remove Himself from His part. Sometimes I think we leave God out of our repentance, we make it about our sin, our need to put things right, our responsibility as a Christian and we have the cross out in front of us to look toward. The image here is of God fully surrounding His people. His actions, because of our sin, should be calling us to return to Him. Maybe no one else struggles with this but I can find it easy to repent to a small god, an over there god and can leave out the Holiness of Him. Not intentionally but because I have a small picture of God and saying sorry can be done cheaply at times. Without deliberate thought it can be all too easy to repent to thin air rather than the living Holy God. May our lives, the good, the hard, the sin, the circumstances, may they all be a cause for us to humble ourselves, and return to God in repentance, with worship, with awe and wonder.

Father awaken in us an enlarged understanding of who You are and may we allow You to define that understanding so that when we say ‘Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, may You not be remote and out there but in all Your fullness dwelling with us . In Jesus name we pray.