This week's message at church referenced Micah 6:8 and what God expects from us. The main emphasis was to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.
And so, my reflection began.....with balance.
In all areas of my life. Does it happen? Not very often. Does it matter? Loads.
All my life, I've been challenged to balance work with family with my personal relationship with God. This nice reminder yesterday morning gave me some practical answers for "how" to actually live out the balance issues.
This verse of Scripture is applicable to ALL areas of my life. Just brainstorming here, I'm thinking of three different ways to apply them to three different areas right now.
Act justly - - that one is good for the work part of my life. Here is where my prayers for discernment come into play: should I do this or that? if this occurs, how will it affect something else down the line? am I living out my faith in accordance to what the Holy Spirit is telling me or just what I want out of it? Act justly. Hard to do. Especially at work.
Love mercy - - I'll apply this to my family life. I'm not very good at this. It's easy for me to be kind and merciful to my colleagues at work because I don't have to live with them. It's really challenging to live out this kind of love at home when I'm tired, frustrated, annoyed, bored, and/or all of the above. Here is where my prayers about I Corinthians 13 come into play. God is teaching me a lot about His love as I continually ignore His pushes to open my heart, cut out the pride, and love my family every day. And it extends to the "love your neighbor" part too. I'm REALLY bad about this - - I like to think that my introvertedness gives me a free pass not to have to worry or care about my neighbors. Boy is it hard for me to love mercy with the people around me. Especially when I continue to choose the TV over playing with my kids outside or going to the neighborhood weekend activity.
Walk humbly with your God - - yeh, this part gets me every time. Each time I "feel" like I'm doing pretty good, His Word penetrates my heart and teaches me something new. It's pretty obvious this just deals with my heart - - on my personal journey with God. So often I'm WALKING with Him on the sidewalk, only to find out that I'm actually just hopping from one square to the next - - concentrating on avoiding the cracks, not stepping on bugs, and making sure my stride is "just right" so my foot hits the middle of each cement block. When all along, I just need to focus on walking WITH GOD: with an honest approach to chatting and listening to my Friend, reading His Word and keeping a strong focus on Him - - the rest of the walking just happens and isn't as stressful and becomes second nature.
That's when I know I'm in balance.
Micah 6:8
