Sprawl
“Those who recline on beds of ivory and sprawl on their couches” Amos 6:4
Sprawl – Before television and print media, spoken words had to communicate visual images. The prophet Amos chose some very picturesque words to create this scene. He wanted to impress upon the people of the kingdom that their pursuit of pleasure and luxury was going to be their downfall. Their reckless abandonment of God’s way would lead to punishment and destruction. So he chose the word sarach.
Sarach comes from a root that means, “to go free”. It is applied to things that are excessive, unrestrained or beyond bounds. Amos says that these people were out of control in satisfying their desires. They were “couch potatoes”, drinking, eating and watching instead of doing what God designed them to do. The only god in their lives was whatever they felt like next.
God judged them for this lifestyle. They were destroyed. They grew overripe and needed to be pruned back to the stalk. What Amos knew thousands of years ago hasn’t changed one bit. Why? Because God’s character is still the same. He sets the standard, not us, not our culture and not our politics. What happened to those people centuries ago can happen to us. God’s kingdom doesn’t tolerate “sprawlers”.
When your life is full of troubles, do you ever think about pruning? God does. He looks down of a world that has gone mad in its pursuit of self-fulfillment and pleasure and He says, “Well, that’s about enough sprawl. Time to prune back to the stalk.” So He starts cutting into our lives. We lose this and that. We find times hard. We have to re-evaluate our priorities. It’s all in His purposes. Belt overhang is just as burdensome as bad attitudes. God is interested in good health in every aspect of life. After all, He designed you to be all that you can be.
Is Amos the prophet of the Twenty-first Century? He just might be. Don’t be surprised if God starts getting rid of sprawl in your life. You were never entitled to freedom from His boundaries. It’s His garden.
