The Lord your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3:17.

When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.” Psalm 27:8 NKJV.

This from You Are The Beloved by Henri Nouwen is long but so beautiful: “To pray means to open your hands before God. It means slowly relaxing the tension that squeezes your hands together and accepting your existence with an increasing readiness, not as a possession to defend, but as a gift to receive. Above all, prayer is a way of life that allows you to find stillness in the midst of the world where you open your hands to God’s promises and find hope for yourself, your neighbor, and your world. In prayer, you encounter God not only in the small voice and the soft breeze, but also in the midst of the turmoil of the world, in the distress and joy of your neighbor, and in the loneliness of your own heart. Prayer leads you to see new paths and to hear new melodies in the air. Prayer is the breath of your life that gives you freedom to go and to stay where you wish, to find the many signs that point out the way to a new land. Praying is not simply some necessary compartment in the daily schedule of a Christian or a source of support in a time of need, nor is it restricted to Sunday mornings or mealtimes. Praying is living. It is eating and drinking, acting and resting, teaching and learning, playing and working. Praying pervades every aspect of our lives. It is the unceasing recognition that God is wherever we are, always inviting us to come closer and to celebrate the divine gift of being alive. In the end, a life of prayer is a life with open hands – a life where we need not be ashamed of our weaknesses but realize that it is more perfect for us to be led by the Other than to try to hold everything in our own hands.”

The above is knowing the love of Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit. And where knowing God is not in this world choosing everything not of God’s love, we have the warnings in our chapter, Amos 3. Hear this word, people of Israel, the word of the Lord has spoken against you – against the whole family I brought up out of Egypt: “You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins.” v. 1-2. And now the questions to link what should be obvious…Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so? Does a lion roar in the thicket when it has no prey? Does it growl in its den when it has caught nothing? Does a bird swoop down to a trap on the ground when no bait is there? Does a trap spring up from the ground if it has not caught anything? When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it? v. 3-6. Lord help us to see. Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets. The lion has roared – who will not fear? The Sovereign Lord has spoken – who can but prophesy? Proclaim to the fortresses of Ashdod and to the fortresses of Egypt: “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria; see the great unrest within her and the oppression among her people.” “They do not know how to do right,” declares the Lord, “who store up in their fortresses what they have plundered and looted.”…”Hear this and testify against the descendants of Jacob,” declares the Lord, the Lord God Almighty. “On the day I punish Israel for her sins, I will destroy the altars of Bethel, the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground. I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished,” declares the Lord. v. 7-10, 13-15.

This happened as we read in Scripture. Assyria ended ancient Israel. Do we think Scripture is only a record for then? Could Creator God love His children and not be concerned with the sins we do today? How lost we are if we have no understanding. When I consider even a fraction of the problems people face in our world today, I quickly become overwhelmed. I can’t imagine being a child in a violent home; an immigrant trying to flee unending violence in a country ruled by drug cartels because of the insatiable need for drugs in our country and other countries; being in a classroom or a church or any place and a gunman trying to kill as many as he can; or cowardly shooting a man in the back and feeling proud and justified as others give money to support his cause; or listening to our leaders continually justify policies guaranteed to hurt as many people as possible while slandering anyone who gets in their way; the corruption in every nation; the list goes on and on and on. You could no doubt add your own woes. Where is the love for Creator God in our hearts? Ancient Israel and Judah gave theirs away to useless idols. What are we doing? Does it matter? Yes. God’s love is for all of His children. As we turn back to God, we turn back to remembering God’s love. We begin to experience the difference between our sins and what they are doing to our world, and God’s love that brings healing in understanding why God’s love is so needed and essential for our souls. We are lost without Creator God. His love will redeem and restore us. Our choice always. And it begins with prayer to the only One who can save us and show us a better way that is with Him.