Daily Lesson for December 3, 2015

Today's Daily Lesson comes from Amos chapter 4 verses 6 through 8:

6 “I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities,
and lack of bread in all your places,
yet you did not return to me,”
declares the Lord.
7 “I also withheld the rain from you
when there were yet three months to the harvest;
I would send rain on one city,
and send no rain on another city;
one field would have rain,
and the field on which it did not rain would wither;
8 so two or three cities would wander to another city
to drink water, and would not be satisfied;
yet you did not return to me,”
declares the Lord.

"What's the gift in it?"

This is a question a wise man now departed used to ask when counseling with those for whom life was painful, disappointing, despairing, and absolutely beyond control.

The gift in it all, again and again, is always the recognition that life is often beyond our control and in the end neither we, nor our money, nor our career, nor our health plan, can save us. This is the gift. It's the gift of hard times when nothing seems to grow or to satisfy or to turn out quite right. It's the gift of losing, going bankrupt, getting foreclosed on, and hitting rock bottom. Ultimately, it's the gift of death.  The gift is the gift of being driven back again to the only one who can save us in the end -- God, and God alone.

Amos says it twice in today's Daily Lesson: "Yet you did not return to me."  In other words, you kept fighting, searching, wandering from place to place, job to job, city to city, church to church, and blaming others.  And your hunger was never satisfied. You did not return to me.  You did not receive the gift.

No rain, no harvest, no bread to satisfy the hungry heart?

What's the gift in it?