Thursday, July 2 – Thank the Lord for the great lengths He has gone to in getting our attention and making us aware of our fatal defection from Him.   Seek forgiveness for our insistence that we have not forsaken Him. Confess that we have sinned and done wrong in the Lord’s sight and ask Him to right us.

^“I smote you with blight [from the poisonous east wind] and with mildew; I laid waste the multitude of your gardens and your vineyards; your fig trees and your olive trees the palmerworm [a form of locust] devoured; yet you did not return to Me, says the Lord” (Amos 4:9, AMP).

Friday, July 3 – Thank God for His kindness to punish us for turning away from Him. Ask Him to awaken us as one city has received rain and others have not, causing people to stagger from one city to another to get a drink, and how it is a call from heaven to return to Him. Ask God to open our eyes to His instruments of discipline and judgment.

“’But I gave you . . . lack of bread in all your places, yet you have not returned to Me,’ declares the LORD. ‘Furthermore, I withheld the rain from you . . . Then I would send rain on one city and on another city I would not send rain . . . So two or three cities would stagger to another city to drink water . . . Yet you have not returned to Me,’ declares the LORD” (Amos 4:6-8, NASB).

Saturday, July 4 – Cry out for grace to know how God works, what He is like, and to help us understand His discipline. Beg for understanding that these judgments are His way of telling us He wants us back. Ask God to help us understand His terms of returning and to grant us a willingness to return.

 "And the LORD has sent to you all His servants the prophets . . . saying, 'Turn now everyone from his evil way and from the evil of your deeds . . . Yet you have not listened to Me," declares the LORD, "in order that you might provoke Me to anger with the work of your hands to your own harm" (Jer. 25:4-7, NASB).

Sunday, July 5 – Implore the Lord to open our hearts to understand that how He has worked in history with other generations helps us know how He will deal with us. 

"’I will surely snatch them away,’ declares the LORD; ‘There will be no grapes on the vine and no figs on the fig tree, and the leaf will wither; and what I have given them will pass away’” (Jer. 8:13, NASB).

Monday, July 6 – Beg God to enable us to understand and respond correctly to the truth that He can devastate or destroy a nation at any moment He chooses. Seek mercy for our nation.

“He stretched out his hand over the sea, he shook the kingdoms: the LORD hath given a commandment against the merchant city, to destroy the strong holds thereof” (Isa. 23:11, KJV).

Tuesday, July 7 – Plead for God to grip our hearts with the truth that He sends horrific natural disaster to nations who forsake Him. Ask God to open our eyes to what is happening in our nation and to help us meet His requirements for repentance.

^“What the crawling locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; and what the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten; and what the hopping locust left, the stripping locust has eaten” (Joel 1:4, AMP).

Wednesday, July 8 – Ask God to break our hearts over the things that are breaking His heart in our families, our churches, and our nation.

^“My heart cries out for Moab . . . For they go up . . . weeping . . . They raise a cry of distress over their ruin” (Isa. 15:5, NASB).