The surprising story of Amos and the moment God called an ordinary man into an extraordinary assignment.
Most of us have some idea of how our lives are supposed to unfold.
We have work to do, families to care for, bills to pay, and ambitions we hope to fulfill. We try to live faithfully before God while pursuing the opportunities in front of us.
And there’s nothing wrong with that.
But occasionally, in the Bible, something remarkable happens. God reaches into someone’s ordinary life and gives that person an assignment they never anticipated.
That’s what happened to Amos.
A man with a life of his own
Amos lived in the eighth century BC, when Israel was divided into two kingdoms. He came from Tekoa, a small town in Judah, south of Jerusalem.
He wasn’t a priest. He wasn’t a member of the religious establishment. He wasn’t even from the northern kingdom of Israel, where God would eventually send him.
Amos worked with livestock and tended sycamore-fig trees. He had a livelihood. Presumably, he had customers, responsibilities, relationships, and plans for the future. It was most likely the life he inherited from his father and grandfather.
We know very little about his personal circumstances, but there’s no reason to imagine that he was sitting around waiting for a spectacular religious career to begin.
He had a life.
And then something happened to reorient him.
God called him to leave his familiar world and travel north with a message that powerful people would not want to hear. He was untrained for this responsibility.
An unwelcome visitor at Bethel
The northern kingdom was enjoying a period of relative prosperity under Jeroboam II. The wealthy were accumulating property, business was booming, and the religious institutions were operating at full capacity.
When God looked down at this prosperous nation, he saw a completely different picture.
The rich were exploiting the poor. Courts decisions were for sale. The outward show of religious worship continued, but the moral character of the nation was deteriorating. They didn’t love him. They were not committed to follow his ways. They used worship as insurance against bad things happening and to try to tilt the scales of luck in their favor.
Amos arrived with a devastating message: God had seen what was happening, and judgment was coming.
As you might imagine, he was particularly unwelcome at Bethel, one of the kingdom’s principal religious sanctuaries.
There he encountered Amaziah, the priestly institution keeper of Bethel.
Amaziah regarded Amos as another itinerant religious professional, someone who made his living delivering theatrical “prophetic” messages.
And he wanted him gone.
In Amos 7:12–13, Amaziah tells him:
“Get out of here, you seer! Go back to Judah. Earn your living prophesying there. But don’t prophesy here anymore. This is the king’s sanctuary.”
You can hear the contempt. Take your business somewhere else. We don’t need your show. You’re not welcome here.
But Amaziah had completely misunderstood Amos.
This isn’t my business
Amos responds with one of the most revealing descriptions about calling in the entire Old Testament.
He says:
“I was neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I was a shepherd, and I 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, NIV)
What an answer. Amos wasn’t pursuing a religious career.
He hadn’t inherited the family prophecy business. He wasn’t trying to build a reputation as a spiritual authority. He hadn’t traveled north because he saw a promising market for his services.
“You think I wanted this?
You think I came here to make money?
I was perfectly occupied with my own life. God sent me here.”
Amos’s courage and spiritual authority rested on the conviction that God had personally commissioned him.
When God interrupts an ordinary life
This is a pattern we encounter repeatedly throughout Scripture.
Moses was tending sheep when God confronted him at the burning bush.
Gideon was threshing wheat when an angel announced that God had an assignment for him.
David was looking after his father’s sheep when Samuel arrived to anoint Israel’s future king.
Mary was a young woman in Nazareth when Gabriel announced that her life would take a direction she could never have imagined.
These people were not all seeking public prominence or extraordinary responsibility.
Their assignments came looking for them.
That raises an interesting question about the way we understand calling.
We sometimes use the word to describe our occupation, our personal ambitions, or the work we find especially meaningful. “I found my calling.” Fair enough. Our ordinary work can be deeply significant before God.
But Scripture also describes another kind of calling: a particular commission, arising from God’s initiative, that redirects someone’s life toward an unexpected responsibility.
And these assignments are not necessarily promotions.
Amos didn’t receive wealth, status, or an easier life. His assignment made him unpopular and placed him in danger. Sometimes the privilege of being sent by God carries an enormous personal cost.
What about the rest of us?
I think we need to be careful when we’re talking about callings like this one.
Not everyone is called to be Amos.
We can become so fascinated with spectacular biblical assignments that we begin to treat ordinary faithfulness as something inferior. Amos’s work as a shepherd and agricultural worker was not meaningless simply because God later gave him a prophetic commission.
Most of our lives are lived in the ordinary rhythms of work, marriage, friendship, parenting, service, and responsibility. These are worthy places to live faithfully before God.
On the other hand, I don’t think we should assume that the life we’ve planned (or even the career we have just completed) is necessarily the only life God might ask us to live. People are living long lives today. You can easily do a 30-year career and still have the expectation of 25 or 30 more years of robust health.
An unexpected responsibility may emerge for you, my friend. A situation may demand courage to do something you’ve never imagined. May find yourself compelled by God’s calling to serve in a place you never intended to serve or in a place you never dreamed of going.
I’ve seen this happen many times. I’m sure you have also.
That doesn’t mean every strong feeling or attractive opportunity is a divine command. Such claims deserve patient discernment. But on the other hand, I think it’s sad to become so attached to our personal plans that we lose the capacity to respond when God redirects us.
Available to be sent
I keep returning to the simplicity of Amos’s explanation.
The LORD took me.
There was no elaborate strategy. No evidence that Amos had spent years dreaming of becoming a national prophetic figure.
He had a certain kind of life, and then he received an unusual assignment.
So when challenged by the religious establishment, he knew why he was there.
I think it was helpful that he was a second-career prophet. He had the maturity of having completed his previous life, dealing with all the challenges that go with farming.
Maybe the question we all need to think about today is this:
Can I throw myself completely into the life I’m living right now while still remaining genuinely open to a new assignment I could never imagine?
It’s not our job to manufacture an extraordinary destiny. We can live faithfully today, with open hands toward tomorrow.
Because sometimes God calls a shepherd to remain a shepherd. And sometimes he sends that shepherd to confront a king.
Amos did not need a prophetic assignment to make his ordinary life significant. But when God gave him an extraordinary responsibility, his previous plans no longer determined his future.
I hope you can live with that much freedom. Sherry and I are trying to. We live with both our arms wrapped tightly around the people God has called us to serve, but all of us have to keep our ears open to new responsibilities and opportunities God may be pushing us toward in his quiet way.
On this journey together.
Chuck and Sherry
