Devotionals for the Heart: Walking with God in this broken world

Walk Humbly With God
A devotional by Wade Webster

"He has shown you, O mortal, 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 (NIV)

When my brother turned 50 he went golfing because it's what he loved to do at that stage in his life...even though it was November 19 in Michigan. The temperature was in the mid-30s with a colder wind chill. It's not surprising that he had the course to himself.

A year and a half later I knew I had to do something special for my 50th birthday, too. Since I discovered my love of writing at 47, I began my blog on my 50th birthday. Yeah, much more climate controlled. I started sharing about my life growing up on a farm in Michigan. By late summer I caught everybody up on where I was then so I needed something else to write about every week. I decided to do a devotional Christmas series based on the first Christmas.

For those of you familiar with The Chosen series my devotionals were in much the same I kept the characters in their biblical setting but gave them contemporary language. To get more familiar with this very familiar section of the Bible I read and re-read the verse(s) I would be writing about while I ate my breakfast. Yeah, I had breakfast with Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth, the shepherds and everyone else involved. It was quite an eye opening experience.

I didn't used to think the Bible had much to say about Joseph, Jesus's stepdad. Now I know he was an extremely remarkable teenager. The more I learned about Joe, the more I realized he lived out Micah 6:8 better than anyone I ever knew in my life.

The first part of the verse that Joseph emulated was when he acted justly about what he planned to do with Mary after he learned she was pregnant with a child that wasn't his. He knew he couldn't marry her because she wasn't trustworthy.

He had three main options when it came to putting Mary away. He could have her stoned, He could divorce her publicly and taken her dowry, or he could divorce her quietly and simply walk away from her. By choosing the third option he proved that he loved mercy on his beloved.

After Joseph's dream visit by an angel who confirmed to him that Mary was telling him the truth about becoming pregnant with the Messiah, Joseph did a mighty deed that hardly any teenager would do. By not having intercourse with his wife until after the Messiah was born, an act that he was well within his rights to do, he showed how much he humbled himself before God.

As we come into this Christmas season, let’s see what we can do to improve ourselves in living out Micah 6:8 in or own lives.

Perhaps you can act justly by not winking at sin quite so much. Admit it for what it is.

Don't condemn folks caught in sin, show them mercy as Jesus did so many times.

And walk humbly with God by remembering what He did for you to bring you into His family. The Cross was the ultimate reason for Jesus Christ coming to Earth. His death was made in our place to restore our relationship with God our Heavenly Father. Now we can walk as God’s child in complete dependence on Him.

I hope that this Christmas brings you closer to this baby (Jesus Christ) who died for you (John 3:16) and now lives for you.

A Christmas Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, break into my life like you broke into this world. Quietly, yet brilliantly. Help me be just, merciful and humble...just like Your Son. In Jesus’s Name I pray. Amen.

~*~
Author Bio:

Wade Webster is a farm boy turned city slicker, heathen turned born-again Christian, truck driver turned writer doing his best to point folks to his best friend, Jesus Christ.

He currently lives in Plano, Texas.

Wade is the author of 100 Prayers of a Writer, a book that didn't begin as a book, just weekly prayers to a group of writer friends.

He enjoys spending time in nature, running for exercise and dark chocolate, though not necessarily in that order. Apart from driving 18-wheelers for a living he has a part-time job painting houses on the side...and the front and back and inside.

As a teenager, he told his friends he never wanted to be considered normal. So far he's done a pretty good job of living up to that aspiration.