Most of life is handled best without fighting. Outcomes where everybody wins are preferable to outcomes where one side (or everyone!) loses. Yet tense situations abound. How can we navigate them to maximize everyone’s welfare and minimize destructive strife? We use the resources of knowledge available to us with wisdom.

God mourns. How strange is that? He experiences loss. Our high theology leaves no room for such sentiment. Yet Jesus came to show what God was like and Jesus wept.

How strange is that?

We are apocalyptic. We live in a culture of doom. Every other film is the End of The World, by asteroid, weather, aliens and now the dead.

How are Christians different? We embrace the End. We look forward to the “Lord’s return.” But should we? There will be no more tears, no more pain, no more mourning, no more suffering – but for whom?

“Horses cannot gallop on rocks, oceans cannot be plowed” (6:12). War, trade and wealth warped like a Dali painting. Bitterness squeezed from the just and fair.

“You are cruel, and you forget the coming day of judgment” (6:3). Lounge lizards, celebrity chefs, pop singers, wine connoisseurs, perfume pushers, do not care about the ruin of their society – then as now.

“Forgive me for asking.“ (7:2) We ask forgiveness for many things, but how often do we ask forgiveness for the questions we pose God? Does it sound stilted, rather formal; how you might speak to the Queen? What does it say about Amos? He is like Abraham with his plea for Sodom & Gomorrah: “May the Lord not be angry” even though “I am but dust and ashes” may I ask: “If there are just fifty… forty, thirty, twenty, ten” righteous people will you relent?

On what size screen would you see a vision from God? IMAX? Would it be in 3D? This one is not pre-recorded, but it’s not live either. Amos sees what hasn’t happened yet. He is not just in the seats, he is in the scene, he is part of the story. He speaks. The Director stops, “CUT.” Amos pleads: too much fire, too many locusts, too much blood. The Director orders: “Rewind. Edit.”

Attributed to Asaph, one of Israel’s worship leaders, this psalm aches with longing for restoration. In it we hear the voice of a prophet as well as a psalmist.

A prophet’s role was to speak the words of God to the people, especially when there was a cultural sway away from the truth. Often the harshest words were reserved for kings and leaders who abused their power and failed to protect their most vulnerable subjects.