Photo by Jenny Venturo
Little does Dad know that an Amos Situation is about to strike.
Maybe you are familiar with the Scripture passage in Amos 5:18-19. In case you aren’t, this is where God’s prophet Amos says that the judgment Day of the Lord will be “as if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him, or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall, and a serpent bit him.” It’s similar to our modern expression “Out of the frying pan and into the fire.” The point of the passage is to warn unrepentant hearts that there is no escape from God’s judgment on the last day. When a person flees from one danger, he will turn and face another.
Sometimes, we find ourselves in hiking or exploring situations where it seems that there is no end to the trials. As with the man described in Amos 5:18-19, we turn our heads, and suddenly we are faced with another tribulation. We run from one discomfort and dive headlong into another.
One day, we took the SUP and kayak out to an island in the middle of Horseshoe Lake, near the Spanish Peaks of southeastern Colorado. When we stepped out onto the island, we realized that flip-flops had been a bad choice. We were met with fire ants, cacti, and piles of animal scat all over the island. Did I mention that it was also sweltering hot?
Like any true explorers, we knew that we must have a name for our discovery. Mom suggested “Amos Island.” As we encountered the new and unexpected obstacles one at a time, we were reminded of the passage in Amos 5:18-19. Only this time, it was “as if a person stepped out onto an island in flip-flops, and cacti and fire ants met him.” The humorous spectacle which we were making on that island seemed to illustrate the much more serious one described in Amos.
Over the years, we’ve found ourselves in many “Amos Situations” like this one. We call them “Amos Situations” because they remind us of the man in Amos. Just like him, it feels like we are constantly getting into scenarios where we finally get out of one danger, only to find ourselves caught in another.
One example involved our recent one-week stay at a state park in northern Minnesota, on a small lake. You see, the map had spoken gloriously of a trail called the “challenge trail” around the lake. Steep sections. Cliffs. River crossings. This trail had it all. Cool!
One afternoon, we stepped onto the challenge trail into the dense woods. Soon we were perspiring heavily in the humid summer temperatures. Then came swarms of deer flies—more deer flies than I have ever seen in my life. As the trail grew more and more overgrown, we realized that we were entering a very different kind of peril than what the map had described. Not the fun kind of peril—the extremely uncomfortable kind.
Poison ivy grew in knee-high bushes along the trail, while small sinister sprouts sprang up from the center of the path. The grass grew longer and longer, and so did the trail. Soon we found ourselves descending one of the so-called “steep sections.” We were thankful when were finally able to escape into the lake on our inner tubes.
Rather than heading back on the path, we decided to paddle back on our inner tubes. When we were almost to the end of the lake, almost ready to go home, a thunderstorm struck.
These two examples should show you exactly what an Amos Situation entails. As we’ve defined it, an “Amos Situation” is a series of interconnected tribulations. Throughout our years on the road, we have found ourselves in this predicament many times. Consider the following “Amos Situations” from our own experience.
· The inflatable kayak is rapidly losing air. Hop out onto an island in flip-flops and find yourself surrounded by cacti. Avoid the cacti and step into fire ant mounds.
· Start a trail with biting flies clouding around your head. Begin to sweat heavily in the humid temperatures. Escape into the lake, only to be pounded by torrential rain and booming thunder.
· Forget to bring your flip-flops on the beach. End up on a sandy back road in the summer heat. Run across the burning sand on the road. Stop to rest in the shade on the other side. Swat hordes of mosquitoes.
· Climb above tree line on a mountain as you are struck by 40 mph winds. Then, get blasted by hurricane-force gusts, which are whipping needles of snow into your eyes. Altitude sickness rattles your lungs. You look up and see that your only consolation, the summit, is shrouded in clouds.
Note that a proper Amos Situation will include both elements that are not under your control as well as those that could have been. An Amos Situation could begin with either one. But it always contains at least one instance of both.
Have you ever found yourself in an Amos Situation? Have you felt like, no matter how hard you tried to escape one trial, you found yourself in another? You can’t force them, but they do happen. Sometimes, Amos shows up and turns your dream experience into a lifelong memory.
While our family has used the term “Amos Situation” as a humorous description of perilous adventures, in all serious, every person will indeed find themselves in the real Amos Situation described in Scripture. When you flee from one danger on the Day of Judgment, you will only be faced by another. Jesus is the only Way of escape from God’s righteous anger against your sin. Turn from your own way and trust in His finished work on the Cross to save you today.
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Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Used by permission. All rights reserved.