A LESSER PROPHET

While opening The Word and flipping through looking for a passage, I was drawn to Amos as I turned those pages.  Amos kept returning to my thoughts with a promise to myself I would reread it---but not today.  Today I was too busy--today I was beseeching God for my purpose.  Today I was pontificating to others about God's Good Purpose for us.

I thought I heard a rap at my door in the  twilight of the day, as I prepared for bed.  The part of the evening when the last rays of the sun slowly sink behind the row upon row of houses that surround me.  The last glimpses of light before the dark of the night swiftly falls over the city.  It was my sweet young neighbor--a mother of four---the baby still tiny in her arms.  She wanted to see my backyard- my oasis--without thought to how God was using her  to answer my prayers.  Quite unsuspecting of her part in the revelation God was slowly revealing.

It all started with Kristen Welch's manifesto I published Sunday via Ann Vos Kamp's blog.  What a maze of  confusion ---I told you---that she told me---that she said.  All used to bring to my consciousness--what God was trying to tell me and with His perfect planning.

We sat and rocked on my front porch that night.  The conversation turned to how we in America have a sense of entitlement.  It began with the medical community and slowly evolved into the poor among us.  We went from our quest for answers and solutions when it comes to our physical bodies.  When answers and miracles of healing are not forth coming, we continue our quest--looking --no demanding the cure.  Somehow in the spiral of conversation, I talked about those a few blocks away who sleep in tight quarters--in sub standard housing--many bodies to one mattress with no covering and flat on the floor.  The poor who live among us.

Today as I slowly emerged into consciousness, Amos popped back to the surface.  Read Amos---one of the lesser prophets.  "I was neither a prophet nor a prophet's son, but I was a shepherd, and I also took care of sycamore-fig trees. But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, 'Go prophesy to my people Israel.' " Amos 7:14-15  In a sitting I re-read those ancient words--looking for God's message to me.

The message for me--for today 

"Seek me and live" Amos 5:4

"But let justice roll like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream."  Amos 5:24

"Woe to you who are complacent in Zion." Amos 6:1

Through the intricate tapestry of a guest writer on another's blog, an unsuspecting neighbor, and His Word---God is beginning to answer my prayer--my plea to reveal His Good Purpose for me.  I do not have all the answers--but I sit filled with awe of what He has shown me.  A book filled with the indignation of God when we ignore those in need--become fat and happy with our circumstance--and forget we serve a Just God filled with righteousness.  

Allowed to peep briefly behind the curtain as the red slowly faded in the western sky and the prophet of old---the lesser prophet---the Shepherd---began to show me The Plan.  I always stand amazed in the glory and mystery of how He works-
The Great I Am.