I ended a conversation with a friend recently with, “Don’t waste what God is teaching you.” He had learned some hard things. He was embarrassed. He was hurt. He seemed ashamed. I encouraged him to write down what he was learning. What I was hoping he would do was pay attention to the work of God in his life.
God is always teaching us. Always revealing things about Himself. Always putting on a show.
Sunday I am scheduled to preach from the Old Testament book of Amos. Amos was not a prophet by birth or occupation. Nor was he the son of a prophet. Amos was a low income farmer. He tended sheep and harvested figs. He was called of God later in life to deliver a scathing message to 10 tribes of Israel in the North. It’s just like God to call a poor, redneck farmer to walk in the middle of wealthy, religious people and proclaim doom. Read his 9 chapter prophecy if you dare. It’s a hard message.
As you read God’s Words to Israel through Amos, you will notice constant references to the surroundings where Amos spent most of his life. Here’s a sample: Amos 1:2; 2:9; 3:4-5; 5:19-20, 24; 6:12; 7:1-6; 8:1; 9:3-15. There are mentions of pastures, shepherds, cedars, oaks, roots, summer fruit, lions, birds, traps, bears, snakes, light, darkness, streams, horses, cliffs, oxen, locusts, crops, hay, vegetation, pebbles, plowmen, grapes, seeds, planting, and produce. Everything about Amos’s life was incorporated into the message God gave him to deliver.
God had not wasted a single moment of Amos’s life. The long decades of tending sheep. The seemingly pointless task of peeling fruit. The close calls with predators. The fear of locusts destroying crops. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year. So much of this guy’s life had to have felt so mundane and routine. But it was never wasted.
We don’t know when Amos incorporated his life of farming with the Lords’ prophetic word. We don’t know, in other words, when God’s words and his farm life connected in his mind. But we do know that throughout his life, Amos was paying attention. Amos was present where God had him. Amos observed circumstances and foliage and animal life and the way of the land. Amos leaned into to his geography and considered it “the land of the living.”
What about you? Are you paying attention where God has you? Have you determined not to miss what God is showing you, teaching you? Are you aware of God’s means of loving you - right where you are? Do you believe God is alive and present - now, in your place - and that makes it “the land of the living”? I promise you this: God won’t waste it. He’s always doing something beyond what we could ask, imagine, or think.
I am writing my next chapter of my book and this resonates with me! Thank you for your leadership and for the support as a Paster to me.
Amen , Thank you for sharing , that should encourage everyone. It very well did me.