What do You want from me God? Who am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to do? What’s my calling? What’s my purpose?

I’ve asked God (and sometimes screamed accusingly) these and many more questions. I just want to do what He made me to do. The simple general answer is found here:  “What can we bring to the Lord? Should we bring him burnt offerings? Should we bow before God Most High with offerings of yearling calves? Should we offer him thousands of rams and ten thousand rivers of olive oil? Should we sacrifice our firstborn children to pay for our sins? No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:6-8

Okay, so He wants us to do right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly WITH Him.  What exactly does that mean?  How do we do that? Let’s so some etymology with verse 8.  I love me some etymology.

Good: (H2896 towb) This word can be translated into good, kind, upright, beautiful, fair, cheerful, bountiful, joyful, pleasant, precious, sweet, wealth, and favor.

Requires: (H1875 darash) This word is interesting…the root is to tread down with the feet, or to trample.  What do you do when you tread down?  You walk over something again and again and again.  It is also used as the verb to study.  Which also means you do something again and again until it is learned.  It can also mean to seek out God in prayer.

Right: (H4941 mishpat) The root word for this is to judge.  It is usually translated judge or justice, lawful or something along those lines.  KJV translates it justice.

Love: (H157 ‘ahab) Love.  To have affection for.

Mercy: (H2617 checed) Kindness, faithfulness, benevolence, and mercy.

Walk: (H1980 halak) To go, walk, traverse, to move, manner of life, and live.

Humbly: (H6800 tsana) To show humility, be modest, act submissively.

The first thing that stands out to me in this whole group of words is the definition for require.  It’s not a hey…this one time I need you to do this.  It’s an all day, everyday, repeat performance.  Consistency comes to mind here.

Consistency.  Yeah.  I’m not the best at that.

The second thing that stands out to me is love mercy.  To have affection for here sounds like to get enjoyment out of or to be thrilled.  TO LOOOOOOVE!  So to have affection for being kind.  To enjoy being faithful.  To be thrilled about granting mercy or seeing mercy being granted.

Yeah.  I need some work here too.

Humbly walk with God… to live a life consistently submitted to God.  Sounds like obedience with a good heart attitude.  I’m pretty sure there’s a verse or two that equates loving God as being obedient to His word.  Yep.  That makes me 3 for 3!  Wooohoo!  Work all around!

So you may be thinking “Hey…this is in the Old Testament…what does Jesus have to say about this?” Well…ask and you shall receive…This is Mark 12:28-34 NLT

“One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

The teacher of religious law replied, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.”

Realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him,“You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.“

Point to ponder while you wander…Life is a journey, folks.  It doesn’t happen in one day.  It happens daily and daily over the course of time.  And in my experience, life with God boils down to this.  Are you doing life WITH GOD?    Have you allowed Him to love you and show you what His love is like?  Pretty much everything starts there with that.  Choosing to do life with God and choosing to let Him love you.  Once that happens, you cannot help but to love other people.

Don’t beat yourself up with where you are or aren’t.  Verses like these are the goal to work towards. In the meantime, let God love you and keep walking with Him.  Being with Him and in His Word is what changes you.  You just have to choose to show up consistently.  Me, myself, I’m in the I’ve got God’s love now how in the world do I affect the world with it? phase right now.

The letting God love me part took 40 years.  At this rate I will need the 120 years Moses had to really be effective.  Haha.  But seriously.  Yeah.  I really actually need those 120 years.  And I need those 120 years to include divine health.

PS:  Wondering about God’s will….Here you go.