Not a Prophet, Just a Farmer

Amos 7:14

Amos responded, “I’m not a prophet, and I’m not a disciple of the prophets. I am a rancher and a grower of figs.

Thought for the day – Not a Prophet, Just a Farmer

Today’s chapter is an interesting one. God changes his mind because Amos asks him to. That in itself is remarkable because we sometimes think that God does not or will not change his mind. But look who God is listening to. A farmer. Amos was a shepherd who also grew figs. In his own words he wasn’t a prophet or even a disciple of a prophet. He was a farmer. And yet God listened to him and changed his mind.

And it got me thinking abut the times we may have had the opportunity to speak to God and change something and we didn’t because we didn’t feel we could. Sometimes we feel that we can’t speak for God because we are…insert reason here…

But the reality is we are God’s Holy people, his Royal Priesthood. We don’t need to be clergy, or prophets, or whatever we think we are that’s stopping us. We just need to obedient to God’s call and God’s word. The reality is you probably won’t be diverting a plague of locusts or stopping the world from being destroyed by fire, but you may well be speaking into someone’s life who may be facing who knows what. Don’t let your fear get in the way. Because it’s that which is stopping you speak God’s truth to a world that needs to hear it.

This blog post is part of the Walking the Way Podcast series. All views expressed in this essay are those of the author. This essay is freely available under Creative Commons License with Attribution-ShareAlike, allowing users to share it in other mediums/formats and adapt/translate the content as long as an attribution link, indication of changes, and the same Creative Commons License applies to that material.

This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Comments

What does it mean to put Jesus first?

What does it mean to put Jesus first? John 12:1-8 Philippians 3:4b-13 What does it mean to put Jesus first? I ask this because as always I try to find a link between the two lectionary readings and as I was thinking about the readings the thing that I recognized across both these passages was the thought that both Mary and Paul are putting Jesus first. In John, we have this wonderful account of Mary anointing Jesus. It’s a passage we think we know reasonably well. It’s not the only account of Jesus being anointed, and most Biblical scholars agree that this account is the same as the accounts found in Luke and Matthew. Details vary but essentially it is the same account. In the account we see Jesus reclining at a table and then Mary prostrates herself at Jesus’ feet and empty’s a whole jar of nard on Jesus. And then wipes Jesus feet with her hair. Two things strike me here. Firstly Nard was not cheap. John notes that is was the equivalent of a year’s worth of wag...

Ecclesiastes 3:1 There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven Thought for the day The blogger Jill Printzenhoff writes about a time how she went fishing and caught nothing and yet the fisherman next to her managed to pull out seven. They were using different bait and she describes it as not her day. She finishes her blog post with these words: ‘You keep striving, you keep working, and you keep on keeping on. Because some day when you cast your line . . . you will be at the right spot at the right time . . . and that day will be your day . . . the day you catch that all elusive fish!’ I believe that there is a time for everything under heaven and earth and sometimes, well actually, all the time we need to be patient and wait because the reality of the situation is we are working to God’s time. The writer of Ecclesiastes also says this about God’s timing: ‘He has made everything appropriate[b] in its time. He has also put eternity in...

Holiness What does holiness look like to you? Or when you hear the word holy what comes to mind. The reason I’m asking is because for a while now I have been thinking about holiness. What does it mean to be holy and whether or not we can truly be holy? We are commanded to be holy both in the Old Testament and by Jesus who said be holy as your Father in heaven is holy (Matthew 5:48). John Wesley taught that genuine faith produces inward and outward holiness. He consistently argued that salvation must produce holiness of heart and life, but he never viewed the process as something that would be completed. He taught that despite the inner assurance and regeneration of character that results from knowing that you have been saved, it is never too long before we discover that there is still a root of sin within. However, there is never an occasion or state of true Christian discipleship that does not lead to a deepening of our love for God and for our neighbour and we become mo...

Walking the Way: A daily devotional

Search This Blog