MVP

No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8 (NLT)

When I was younger, less round, and less gray-haired, I was a varsity athlete at my school. No, I didn’t set any records, but I was good enough to make the starting line-ups. Every year, we had a sports banquet to close the school year out. We had dinner with our friends and family, and the coach handed out awards for certain accolades to the top athletes on each team. These top athletes were selected by their teammates (and the coaching staff). So, every year, we voted for who should get the awards, including MVP (most valuable player), the most coveted award. And, every year, I voted for myself. Yup. You see, I was good at sports, and I knew I was good at sports, but humility still wasn’t a big part of my athletic life. So, every year, I watched as my teammates celebrated with their trophy, applause, and recognition.

Humility, or humbleness, in its most basic sense, is never praising self – both inside your head and outside with your mouth, keyboard, or writing device. It is realizing that life is not about you. In our Christian faith, life is all about Jesus.

In our Christian walk, how many times does humility take a time-out because we believe we are big enough, strong enough, or wise enough, to walk our faith journey without the direction of the Faith-giver? Or, as is often the case, we give ourselves permission to take a detour or shortcut. As our verse today states, “walk humbly with your God.”

The issue many of us have is that we try to make our life-journey about us. Sure, we might be willing to let Him take the lead at church, or vespers, or Sabbath School. Maybe we let Him take the lead in Bible class or small group Bible-study. However, it’s in the day-to-day, our living outside of the programs, that we must humbly submit to the reality that God is large and in charge if we call ourselves a Christian.

Walking humbly with our God means we realize we are nothing, He is everything. And, because He is everything, we must invite Him into every facet of our lives – social, romantic, career, finances – every part. We must walk WITH God, on HIS path, not our own. We must realize that He is the true MVP over the universe, and over us.