A Great Sadness

Read Micah 1-2
 
Micah 1:8 Therefore, I will mourn and lament. I will walk around barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and moan like an owl.
 
ONE good reason for reading God’s entire story – all of the Bible - is to learn the way the prophets’ ministries are interspersed with the kings’, with Israel’s and with Judah’s history. To know the Bible’s history is to know how God has worked through an enormous span of time to reveal himself to you today. God’s Love Story means very little if we simply view him from our own chapter of life. After all, you are never in a true relationship with someone until you know one’s history. It is only when people share their stories do you begin to understand more about who they are. Sharing stories builds trust and commitment. We learn from others. Our life is more complete then.
   The same is true if you call Jesus, “My personal Lord and Savior”. Knowing God’s glorious story to redeem mankind from evil will build your trust, love and commitment to the One Who Saves.
   Who is Micah? He’s known as one of the Minor Prophets, so named because we have less of his writings than Isaiah, for example. But the two are connected. If you read the introduction to Isaiah again and compare it with Micah 1:1, you’ll find the two prophets’ ministries occurred at a similar time. Knowing this fact of God’s story teaches us God was being very purposeful and thorough to declare his urgent messages to Israel and Judah.
   Micah 1:8 is a lament because Micah knows God’s story. God keeps his promises – both curses and blessings. Micah understood the death and division, the anguish and the suffering his friends, neighbors and countrymen would know as they stay in their sins.
   So, too, should we deeply mourn when loved ones falter and run from God. We grieve for their fruitless search for purpose, love and goodness they will not know if they neglect God’s story. This was Micah, lamenting Israel’s future and the sorrow God would know fulfilling his judgment promises. 
   Micah’s nakedness is an illustration of shame and guilt throughout the Bible. Sin opened Adam’s and Eve’s eyes to their nakedness. Suddenly they were ashamed because they were no longer perfect in each other’s eyes. Nakedness became a sign of our mortality. No longer clothed in God’s glory, the first couple were clothed in their fleshly mortality. God is the only one who can clothe us. God no longer had clothes for Israel.
   God wants you clothed in him. His story is now moving to the final day when all who are victorious will be clothed in white. I will never erase their names from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that they are mine. (Revelation 3:5) This is God’s story. We look to the past to see how he has clothed us in salvation.