Choose to look to God

By Dean Collins

Even when we must face difficult realities, the prophet Micah reminds us that there is hope.

As is the case with all of the prophets, Micah did not shy away from pronouncements of judgment. Israel had an ongoing failure when it came to loyalty to God first and to God alone. The prophets all called God’s chosen people to repentance. After Israel’s repeated failure to repent and come back to God, each prophet spoke of the coming judgment that was the result of Israel’s sins.

Micah is one of the group of prophets known as a minor prophet. This designation was due to the significantly shorter length of the prophet’s writings. The words of the major prophets and the minor prophets held the same importance and often the same overall message.

All of the prophets had words of judgment, repeated calls to repentance, warnings about what was to come including the eventual destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. But the prophets also spoke of the sovereignty of God and God’s plan to bring restoration and renewal of all things that would come from the remnant of God’s faithful followers and based on God’s great mercy and love.

While Micah contained all of the similar warnings of the other prophets, Micah spoke powerful and familiar words of hope. It is in Micah that we learn that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem. Micah reminds us that the coming Messiah would come to shepherd his flock. The apostle John wrote about Jesus being our good shepherd.

Micah encouraged his readers to understand that one day every adversary would be defeated.

”Your hand shall be lifted up over your adversaries, and all your enemies shall be cut off.”
Micah 5:9

Because of the work of Christ on the cross, every adversary including death itself has been defeated. There is nothing that faced God’s chosen people in Micah’s time or now that Jesus has not defeated. Our sins are forgiven; our relationship with God has been reconciled; and our future has been made not just bright but glorious as we receive God’s work of transformation through our faith.

Micah ends his short prophetic work with strong words of encouragement and hope. And he does so with a personal declaration - one that I am repeating out loud every day this year:
“But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.”

If we are honest with ourselves and with the Lord, we can make the same declaration. We know that looking to self will not work in our toughest moments. We know that looking to government cannot solve our deepest needs. We know that no matter how much love and support we receive from friends and even family, it cannot deliver us against our greatest challenges. So our best hope, our only hope, is to say with Micah, “But as for me, I will look to the Lord." He is our current and our eternal hope.

But we must embrace that second line. It is sometimes hard to hear, but it is a part of the process: I will wait for the God of my salvation. The help is assured, but the timeframe is in God’s hands and not ours.

Finally, Micah reminds us, “My God will hear me.” We could quote dozens of passages that say the same thing. God hears our prayers, and he will answer them. He is faithful every time.

As Micah concludes, he reminds himself as he reminds the enemy, “O my enemy, when I fall, I shall arise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light.” I don’t know about you, but I need to make that declaration more often. I need to be reminded that our failures, our mistakes, our challenges, our sicknesses, and even our death is not the end. We will arise because of Jesus. And it doesn’t matter how dark today might appear to be. There is no darkness that the light of Christ does not break through!

So go ahead and read the minor and the major prophets. We have much to learn from them and many behaviors we also need to address and correct in our lives and in our communities. But do not get stuck just with those hard messages. Remember the hope and the victory that is ours that the prophets foretold, and we have now seen. Jesus changes everything!

Father, thank you for your word that is living and active. Thank you for showing us our sin and that through Christ, we can experience forgiveness and transformation. Today, we declare that you are our hope. Today, we choose to look to you. We will wait for you in every situation knowing that you will bring us victory forevermore. In Jesus name, Amen.

Your Time with God’s Word
Micah 5:2, 4; Micah 7:7-8, 18-20 ESV

Photo by KEEM IBARRA on Unsplash
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