Advent Devotional – December 11

Advent Week 2: Peace

December 11

Micah 6.8

He has told you, O mortal, 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?

Before we can get to our verse today, let me remind you what is going on in Micah Chapter 6.  It seems that we have entered into a heated trial between God and some ungrateful people.  The prophet, Micah, is representing God’s case and reminding the community all that God had done for them.  God has redeemed God’s people from slavery so that they may know God’s saving act.  All their attention is on the wrong things…not paying attention to their relationship with God.  Has that ever happened to you?  Has your attention turned from God because of the ritual or busyness of life?

Christmas list of things to do: Christmas photos taken in hopes of one good enough to send as a Christmas Card, gifts to be purchased, food to be prepared, parties to attend, Sunday school lesson to be taught, Christmas trees picked and trimmed, and the list goes on.  It gets easy to lose our relationship with God during the Advent Season, so easy that we may not even notice.  I would even offer you permission to forget your to do list, but that would only cause fret and anxiety.  So what if in performing our to do list, we become really present to these moments and use them to reconnect ourselves to the real issue at the heart of Christmas, our relationship with God.  Let’s connect the dots between what we are doing and why we are doing it.

As we read our verse, Micah 6:8, we see the response that God desires from God’s people: to walk attentively and with a steadfast love in relationship with the One who created us.  I am asking that in the clutter of this Advent season, you find ways to be mindful that God is present in all that you do.

Prayer: God of Advent, it is hard for us to let go of our “to do” lists but help us to find ways in which our “to do” lists draw us or remind us of our relationship with you.

Action: Take one item on your “to do” list and pray over it.  See how God can use it to draw you closer in that moment.

Kim Priddy is Associate Pastor of Missions at First Baptist Church, Greensboro