Reading of the Day: Micah 6:8
We celebrated baptism days in my family when I was growing up. In a family with seven children, I suspect that my parents began that tradition in part to guarantee that at least once a year they would have time alone with each child. We would go to dinner, just Mother, Daddy, and me, and talk about whatever was on my mind, and my parents always had a gift for us to remember the day. Near the end of my mother’s life, all seven of us received the same baptism day gift: a small, framed calligraphy of Micah 6:8:
"He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"
That simple verse hangs on the wall of my bedroom and is a daily reminder of the simple instruction we have been given as Christ’s people. We live in a complicated world filled with conflict, stress and despair. The words of the prophet, Micah, remind us that, at its base, our faith is not terribly complicated. We have received our instructions about what we are to do in the world.
The last phrase of this verse is particularly profound to me, "Walk humbly with your God." As we follow these instructions, we walk with God, not behind or ahead of Him, but with Him. He has called us his friends and walks beside us as we celebrate joys and mourn sorrows. And yet, we are instructed to be humble, for everything we accomplish comes from Christ, and to him belongs the glory. As we say at the end of the Lord’s Prayer, "The kingdom, the power and the glory are yours." In that phrase we acknowledge that everything that we are and everything that we do comes from Christ. Soli Deo Gloria – to God alone be the glory.
PRAYER: Lord, help us to remember that everything we have comes from you. Let us be generous in sharing our gifts of time, talents and treasures to further your kingdom in our world today. In your name we pray. Amen.