There’s something wonderfully untamed about the prophet’s words in Amos 5:24, where God cries out, let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream. It isn’t a polite trickle. It isn’t a carefully managed canal, contained and controlled. It’s a river in full flow, alive, cleansing, unstoppable.

Through the prophet Book of Amos, God speaks to a people who were outwardly religious yet inwardly unjust. Their worship gatherings were impressive, their songs loud, their offerings abundant, yet the poor were exploited, the vulnerable ignored, and the courts corrupted. God makes it clear that he isn’t interested in worship that floats above the realities of suffering. He wants justice that runs through everyday life.

A river reshapes the land it travels through. Over time it carves valleys, nourishes fields, and sustains communities. Justice, in God’s heart, is like that. It’s not a slogan, nor a passing enthusiasm. It’s a steady, life-giving current that refreshes the weary and lifts the bowed down. Righteousness, that never-failing stream, speaks of right relationships: with God, with neighbour, with the earth itself.

I’m struck by the movement in this image. Justice rolls. It doesn’t stagnate. It moves outward. It refuses to be confined to private spirituality. If I pray, sing, and read scripture, yet ignore the lonely neighbour, the struggling family, the unfair system, then I’m damming the river. God longs to break through those barriers.

And yet this isn’t a call to frantic activism fuelled by guilt. A river flows because it’s connected to a source. Justice flows from the character of God himself. As we draw close to him, as his spirit softens our hearts, his concern for the marginalised becomes our concern. His holy restlessness becomes ours.

So perhaps the prayer isn’t, “Lord, make me impressive,” but, “Lord, let your justice flow through me.” In our homes, our churches, our communities, may we become channels rather than containers. May kindness run deep. May fairness become instinctive. And may the quiet persistence of righteousness shape the ground beneath our feet, until God’s kingdom looks less like a distant dream and more like a living, flowing stream among us.