‘God is coming to Israel and Judah,’ announces Micah, ‘therefore let the people mourn.’ Why? Because God is grieved and when God is sad that becomes the most important reality you need to become aware of. Whatever problems you may have, your biggest problem at any given time is the extent to which you are a cause of sadness to God. God is sad. He is sad when he looks down upon the suffering that humanity inflict upon themselves and each other. He is sad because people would rather live without him and thereby waste the lives that he gave them. If God did not love us, he would not be sad but, by choosing to love, God also made himself vulnerable, as paradoxical as it may sound, to suffering. In the pages of Micah, we encounter the deep sadness of God. Out of love he offers mercy, but if that mercy is spurned then justice must take its course. It is not that God has to submit to some code of justice outside himself. Rather, God is justice. Justice is the expression of the character of God and God cannot be other than what God is. God does not show mercy at the expense of justice. He himself fulfilled the demands of justice in Jesus Christ in order to show mercy. The sadness of God is that, having paid such a price to open the door to his house, we should walk by it without entering. God wants you to live in his house, in his presence and for his purpose.
Respond to God’s invitation.
Read Micah 1
