Our Marching Orders

Our Marching Orders:

Micah 6:8

As a young boy, I like many, wanted to be liked and have friends. As a result, many of my actions today I am not too proud to remember. If I can speak honestly, I did them to be liked, get attention and I was successful on all accounts. Yet one situation from my younger days, sticks out in my mind as having a real correlation to this week’s scripture verse.

On my way home from school one afternoon, I was goaded into breaking a street-side fire alarm box (yes, I know many of you don’t even know what I am talking about but there are a few of you who do). Well I did exactly what I should not have done and pretty soon off in the distance, I could hear the faint roar of a fire truck coming toward us. Scared and afraid, I ran all the way home and hid in my room, under my bed. Little did I know that one of my so-called friends, came to my house to report my misdeed.

When my parents returned from being away, I thought for sure I was going to led right out back to the woodshed. Yet my fears were never realized as my father took me to the exact fire station here the call had come into and I got a talking to by the Fire Chief, who was a friend of my father’s. The Chief was a strong Christian. He told me that my actions were not in good standing with the way God would have me to carry myself. He further told me when I got home, to look up in my Bible a verse in Micah. He told me the verse was Micah 6:8 and to take it to heart. When I got home, I looked up the Bible verse and I decided right then and there to leave behind the way I had been previously walking. Not a cross word was ever spoken to me by my father. He did not need to speak. It had already been spoken through another man’s words and most importantly the Bible.  Nothing more needed to be said. It was up to me to follow through.
As we look at the passage, the prophet Micah of the Old Testament, is telling the people of Jerusalem and Samaria of their impending devastation and God’s forthcoming judgment against the false prophets and leaders who were taking the people of Israel down a road they needn’t go. Much like the Fire Chief was for me, the prophet Micah was likewise for the nation of Israel. The prophet Micah gave the people the same words the Fire Chief gave me many, many years later. I want us to really pay attention here to what is being said.

Micah 6:8:

“No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God”.

What is the prophet Micah saying here? He was giving all of us (especially us men) our “marching orders”. He is telling us what God expects from us and He expects no less.

Is this easy for all of us?  Hardly so I would expect, no it’s not that easy. But those are the marching orders we have been given. It is up to us whether we want to follow them or not.

So until next week, seek to put one foot in front of the other and follow the marching orders we have been given. I know I will be trying day-by-day.I pray the same for each of you.

Walking with you,