Amos 9:1-4 You Can Run, But You Can't Hide

 

Observation: The Lord speaks a warning to the prophet Amos. He is fed up with the people of Israel and intent on destroying them. There is no place--not even Sheol, the land of the dead, or at the bottom of the sea--where they can escape God's punishment. Yet a few verses beyond today's appointed reading, to the end of Ch. 9 and of the book itself, God promises to rebuild and bring to prosperity the very nation God has destroyed for its unfaithfulness.

Application: I always struggle with texts about God's wrath. I know God gets angry, but  the idea of unrelenting punishment that chases people down to the ends of the earth seems so different from the God I know in Jesus. I don't think this is how God usually interacts with God's people. What I do take away from this text, however, is humility. Amos warns proud sinners, who say, "evil shall not overtake or meet us," that they shall die by the sword. In our relentlessly optimistic, positive-thinking culture, I worry that sometimes we each think of ourselves as special. Especially good, especially fortunate, especially deserving of God's love. I have to admit that I sometimes have an innate sense that things will work out for me, because I have been so fortunate in the past. Like in Garrison Keillor's old stories of Lake Wobegon, "where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average," I worry that sometimes I carry with me a certain complacency toward God's grace. Maybe I need a text like this to remind me: I do not deserve it. I never, ever will. What I deserve is to face the consequences of my sin, and to be fully on the hook for the ways I have hurt others, or failed to help them. And in that scenario, if I were to get what I deserve, there would be no place to hide. Not beneath the sea, not below the earth, not in space. I am forever grateful that God's love and forgiveness are just as relentless. 

Prayer: God, your sight and your presence are everywhere, and there is no escape from you. Thank you for your mercy. Help me be changed and transformed by it to live for you. Amen.