Hills of Humbling

“Hear what the LORD says: Arise, plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. Hear, you mountains, the indictment of the LORD.” (Micah 6:1-2)

We bring our case against God, awaiting his arrival as defendant, only to find after a time of testing that he answers out of the whirlwind as Judge (cf. Job 38:1).

“O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Answer me! For I brought you up out of the land of Egypt … remember what Balak king of Moab devised, and what Balaam the son of Bear answered him.” (Micah 6:3-5)

Why was Israel tired of the Lord? Because they let their present circumstance erase the evidence of past faithfulness.

Frustration against the Lord builds on a foundation of forgetfulness. Before we can buy today’s story that God has forgotten us, we have to wipe out the historical evidence of his favor.

Remember your Red Sea story: when there was no way and God made a way.

Remember your Balaam moment: when you should have been cursed and you were blessed instead.

Remember, above all, the once-for-all proof of Calvary—a much greater testimony than your circumstance: where the Judge proved once for all that he stands on your side (Romans 8:34).

“‘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)

When God arrives and memories return and frustrations fade into holy fear, we rush to extreme ideas for rectifying the relationship. Like Job, we go from self-righteous assertions to self-loathing ashes (Job 42:6).

But God doesn’t want a grand sacrifice as a payment for our forgetfulness. He doesn’t want our “fits and starts” (Ephesians 4:1-3 MSG). He wants us to step back into a long and steady walk, built again on the fundamentals (cf. Colossians 2:6-7).

“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)

Are you doing what he says?

Are you loving as he loves?

Are you walking humbly with your God?

We enter in with grand questions, shaking our fists, and we leave, clearheaded and still, coming back to the basics of our faith.

In seasons of testing, it is humbling to remember that it is we and not God who are being put to the test. And yet, it is this very humility that helps us pass. It is possible for the proud to walk around God. But only the humble can walk with him. To walk with God, we must lay aside our preferred pace and direction and come behind the confounding stride of the Lord.

We must let the hills of humbling echo our complaints with a sober consideration of our ways (Micah 6:1-2).