Thursday, March 5, 2015
Today’s blog is about communication problems. In a favorite movie of mine of long ago, “Cool Hand Luke”, the prison road captain that had to beat Luke did it because, according to him, Luke just didn’t understand. He called it “a failure to communicate.” Do you know any folks like that, those who just “don’t get it”? I am reminded here of the woman who went to see a marriage counselor because she and her husband didn’t understand one another and she sensed their marriage was on the rocks. He asked her, “any grounds”? She replied, “yes, about two acres.” Next, he asked her, “do you have a grudge”? She answered, “No, we have a carport.” Noticing her slightly unkempt appearance, he asked her, “Did your husband beat you up this morning”? She replied, “No, I got up before he did.” His next question was, “Does your husband treat others like he treats you”? This time she replied. “Oh no, he doesn’t have that kind of money.” Now obviously agitated, the doctor asked her angrily, “do you want to divorce him”? She answered, “Oh no, he wants to divorce me. He claims he just can’t communicate with me.” I appears that maybe, just maybe, her husband had a point.
In the 4th Chapter of the book of Amos, it is obvious that the prophet was dealing with people who also “didn’t get it.” Because of their cruel, sinful, and idolatrous ways, the Lord sent them famine, drought, plagues, military defeat, and locusts to destroy their crops, and still these folks “didn’t get it” and kept on going in their evil ways. They were much like the people in the days of the prophet Malachi. Though they went through the motions in their spiritual obligations, they were offering lame and sickly animals to God in their sacrifices, withholding their tithes and offerings, generally not giving God their best, and then they had the gall to say: “It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts?” (Mal. 3:14) These were like those Paul wrote about in 2 Timothy 3:5 who “have a form of godliness but deny the power thereof.”
Going back to the people in the days of the prophet, Amos, let’s put ourselves in their situation. What would you do if all of a sudden you had no food or water, if it rained in all the other places around you but not where you lived? What if you moved to one of those places that had no drought or famine and as soon as you got there the water, food and good crops disappeared, and the place that you just left started thriving again? What if one bad thing or another just kept coming your way? Would you stop, reflect, and make a quick inventory of your life and think that maybe God was trying to get your attention? If nothing else, wouldn’t that be reason enough for you to seek God’s help? Strangely, many people face adverse things constantly and they just attribute it to “bad luck.” They just “don’t get it!” I know you’re not like them because all God’s children “get it.”
Memory verse for the week: “So then, neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.” (1 Cor. 3:7 KJV)
