You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone

You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone

Read Amos 7:1–9:15

9. “In that day,” says the Sovereign Lord, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth while it is still day.
10. I will turn your celebrations into times of mourning and your singing into weeping. You will wear funeral clothes and shave your heads to show your sorrow—as if your only son had died. How very bitter that day will be!”
11. “The time is surely coming,” says the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine on the land—not a famine of bread or water but of hearing the words of the Lord.
12. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from border to border searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.
13. Beautiful girls and strong young men will grow faint in that day, thirsting for the Lord’s word.” Amos 8:9-13

It’s funny how we appreciate some things only after they’re gone. The kids grow up and move away, and suddenly the house is much too quiet. Or the job we once called boring now looks like the best one we ever had. Whether we took it for granted or not, something good has come and gone, and how we miss it now!

As Amos continues prophesying against Israel and Judah, his words reveal one precious commodity that they are about to lose: God’s Word. Up to this point they haven’t seen its value. They’ve taken it for granted and left it unused. It will soon be gone, and someday they will miss it—the day when they need it most.

That’s why Amos sees visions of judgment, from which no one can escape. Fortunately for those who listen, the visions also include promise of restoration (a constant theme from our God, who disciplines those he loves). As you read this passage, consider how much you really value God’s Word.

The people to whom Amos preached wanted nothing to do with God’s Word. Though they had the law of Moses, they ignored it. When God graciously sent prophets like Amos to warn the Israelites to pay attention to his Word, they ignored that, too. They didn’t want to hear what God had to say. It is no wonder, then, that the day would come when all this apathy toward Scripture would come back to haunt them. They would crave the opportunity to hear his Word and not be able to find it anywhere—taken for granted and taken away (Amos 8:11-13).

Amos’s message speaks to us as well. We disregard the Bible to our own peril. If we set it aside, the day may come when we will need it and it will be gone. How we treat the Bible each day makes a huge difference.