Today's chapters followed a similar pattern: God talked to (and through) a prophet about His disappointment in His people. He prophesied hard times ahead as consequence for their disobedience. However, as I read Micah today, I saw God's hand at work through the ups and downs of Israel. Through everything (and even through these short chapters), the love of God and the hope He has for His people was crystal clear.
Let's review this segment where Micah talks about ungodly people's views of God's work with His people:
These blasphemers have no idea
what God is thinking and doing in this.
They don't know that this is the making of God's people,
that they are wheat being threshed, gold being refined.
On your feet, Daughter of Zion!
Be threshed of chaff,
be refined of dross.
I'm remaking you into a people invincible...
I love the hope in these sentences: While God's people are facing consequences for their disobedience, God is shaping them into something stronger. He used hard times in their history to build them up. When that kind of God-shaped transformation happens, most of us don't see it because it looks like a mess--it looks like a bunch of problems and challenges and disasters. But those things can refine us--as long as God's in it and we don't allow problems, challenges, and disasters to define and destroy us.
I also liked this excerpt about God's clear direction for His people. Just before these verses, the prophet describes God's relationship with Israel through history--how He led them out of slavery and blessed them with good leaders, like Moses, who led them to the Promised Land. Take a look:
But he's already made it plain how to live, what to do,
what God is looking for in men and women.
It's quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor,
be compassionate and loyal in your love,
And don't take yourself too seriously—
take God seriously.
Isn't that good?
Often we fail because we try to do things our way, instead of God's way. We think we're strong and independent. We think we know the answers. We think we don't need Him--we think wrong.
God thinks beyond what we're able to comprehend. God does the unexpected. God makes miracles--transforming lives and situations that seem lost and hopeless.
Perhaps the most shocking idea in the Bible? God wants us.
God wants us to choose Him, love Him, trust Him and live the lives He's dreamed for us long before we were ever born.
Tomorrow: Nahum
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