Old Friends & And The Journey

When meeting with old friends, it is lovely they way they remind you of one another. This morning for me, the old friends are the apostle James, the prophet Micah and F. LaGard Smith.

In Sunday School we are studying the letter of James with his reminder of what true religion is.

Dr. Smith reminds in Meeting God in Quiet Places that Noah walked with God as did Enoch. But the prophet Micah shows us that "walking with God leads us to the very heart of our purpose for living."

He has showed you, O man,

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

Loving is earnestly desiring and delighting in.

Walking is doing so carefully and perseveringly, making progress on the journey

Humbly mean submissively. (from the Greek definitions)

And James gives the three aspects of true religion as the controlled tongue, the ministering, sacrificing spirit and a life unstained by the world and its ways.

These all strike with very pointed arrows deep into the heart of me.

My life just now seems a far cry from the quiet Cotswold country lanes Dr. Smith walks. Yet...and yet...wwould not every lane of my journey be quiet and yes, peaceful if these simple requests were followed? If I truly walk with my God, how could I walk other than submissively? How could I be other than unhurried, unstained and quietly peaceful?

A new day, a new focus.

Thanks be to my faithful, longsuffering God and Life companion.

Onward, still onward!