What God Wants
What does God want from us? Have you thought about what God wants from you? What are you doing to give God what he wants? Is what God wants from us expected or unexpected? Is what God wants from us burdensome?
There are times when we think God wants from us more than he does. There are other times we think God wants less from us than what he does. There are times we think God’s commandments are burdensome. However, God’s commandments are not burdensome. As the first letter of John says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3, ESV).
What God wants from us can be way simpler than we assume. What God wants from us can be unexpected and practical. What God wants from us can be more profound than we imagine. What God wants from us can be freeing and life giving.
The prophet Micah searches out the question, “What does God want?” when he writes, “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” (Micah 6:6-7, ESV).
Micah gets into the thick weeds of a myriad of complex choices regarding what God might be requiring or asking of us. The assumptions of what God wants are endlessly intense and burdensome as he ponders the question: “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?”
Micah then responds with what God, and God’s law, has clearly requested, saying, “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8, ESV).
The essential beginning assumption is that what God has said is “what is good.” God wants what is good for each of us. God wants us to do good and to be good as we obey him. God wants us to do justice. God wants us to love kindness. And God wants us to walk humbly with him. God wants what is good for us, and what is good for us is not burdensome or complicated.
May we seek God and the good God wants from us as we do what God wants by doing justice, and loving kindness, and walking humbly with our God?” (Micah 6:8, ESV)
A Collect for the Fourth Sunday of Epiphany: “O God, you know that we are set in the midst of many grave dangers, and because of the frailty of our nature we cannot always stand upright: Grant that your strength and protection may support us in all dangers and carry us through every temptation; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, 2019).
A Prayer for Mission: “O God, you have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth, and sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh; and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, 2019).
