Time well spent

“He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8)

Well, we have arrived. I knew it was coming, but I had hoped I would get further into the 40 days before it happened. I am to a verse that doesn't really say anything to me and therefore I have nothing to say about it.

So, time for some honesty about my hang-ups with Scripture:
One of the frustrations I have with the Bible is I feel like it is full of directives without much help on the application part. This verse is a great example of that for me. We are directed to act justly and love mercy and walk humbly.

Well, what the heck does that mean? What does that look like? Sometimes I really wish God would spell it all out for me - I don't want to think up my own creative answers. I just want Him to tell me, "Erin, go do X." So I can just go do "X" and not wonder if it is the right "X" or if I was actually supposed to do "Y," or if now is the right time to be doing anything at all... Sometimes I feel like Scriptures are way to open to interpretation and that makes me terrified I will get it all wrong.

Another frustration I have about the Bible is, once I have put my mind to coming up with an answer to questions like the ones above, I don't usually like them. For example, if I ask myself, "what does it mean to walk humbly with God?" My answer sounds something like, "It means to put myself last so I may serve others. It means cleaning up after dinner instead of assuming David will do it while I veg. It means actually NOT thinking other people are stupid all the time but recognizing that doing things differently than me isn't wrong. It means willingly and lovingly setting aside whatever my agenda is so I can play Monopoly Junior for the 6,532 time when asked by my kids. It means trusting God has a better plan for my life than I do and trusting He will reveal the steps I need to take just in time for me to take them.

See? Who would like those answers?

Sometimes I read something from the Bible and think, "God, that sounds great. Lovely idea. But, honestly, I am too tired to do that. Is there something else I can do instead?"

Today, we heard a great sermon about resolutions and how they reveal the gods in our lives that try to steal the limelight from the One and Only, especially if none of our plans for 2009 include anything about God. I didn't really make any resolutions this year yet, mainly because I feel too overwhelmed by "just getting by" every day to bother. That's when it dawned on me. The god I serve more often than not is the god of Leisure. I want down-time more than I want God-time. I want to spend mental energy on vegging in front of a movie, or chatting on the phone more than I want to spend it on studying Scriptures. I want to "deserve a break today" instead of serve those whom I love most in the world - God, my husband and my children.

I don't know how any of this really applies to this verse - except to say that I need to spend some more time today thinking about where I fail and succeed at acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly. But right now, Vivi has asked me to do a puzzle with her...so I am going to do that instead.