If we are to walk humbly with God we need a clear understanding of humility. As always, context is important and in the case of Micah humility is presented in the context of first demonstrating justice and loving mercy.
8 He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8 (NKJV)
Practically, humility means that we submit our ideas of justice and mercy, and everything else to God’s ideas. We recognize that we are not in charge, He is. This is humility. I think in general your average Christian believes in submitting to God in theory, just not so much in practice. I made a real commitment to Jesus when I was 25 (a long time ago now). At the time I struggled to accept Christianity, though I had been raised with it, because I didn’t like some of what the Bible said, and honestly I still don’t. However, what I have learned is that I need to bow my knee to His wisdom and sovereignty.
There is a reason I am not in charge of the universe and part of humility is choosing to obey and submit my will to the scriptures because they are an expression of Yahweh’s views.
The Bible communicates His will to us. Where we have significant issues now in evangelical Christianity in the US and Canada is that we have in many ways abandoned a humble submission to His word. It is one thing to debate over the main theological positons of Calvinism or Arminianism because both positons can be defended from scripture. What cannot be defended is the shifting positon of many on social issues. The scriptures are not ambiguous here, and while we may not recognize it, when we seek to reinterpret them in our image we are playing God and refusing to humble ourselves.
If we want true justice and mercy then we need to humbly hold our ideas up to the lens of scripture and change our views where we see conflict. Let’s take a look!.
