With what shall I come before the Lord? “The Lord has told us what is good; walk in humble fellowship with God and live in steadfast righteousness and love toward others.” Micah 6:8. Paraphrase

Walking with God denotes an active habit. A communion in the common movements of the day. Some bow humbly before God in the hour of prayer. Others sit humbly in His presence at the time of meditation. And still others work themselves up to draw near to God in seasons of religious excitement. But all this falls short of walking with God.

Walking is a common pace, an ordinary rate of progress, and it does not require great effort. It is a practical working pace, a rate at which one can continue on and on and make a day’s journey by the time the sun is down. So walking with God means being with God always. Being with Him in common things, being with Him on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, as well as on the Sabbath. It means being with Him in the shop, with Him in the kitchen, with Him in the field. It means feeling His presence in buying and selling, in weighing and measuring, in plowing and reaping. Doing unto the Lord the most common acts of life.

Then comes in the qualifying word “humbly.” When our walk with God is closest and clearest, we should be overwhelmed with adoring wonder at the condescension that permits us to think of speaking with the eternal one. To this reverence must be added a constant sense of dependence. Walking humbly with God through the daily drawing of all supplies from Him, and gratefully acknowledging that it is so. We are never to indulge a thought of independence from God, as if we were anything, or could do anything apart from Him. Walking humbly with God involves a profound respect for His will and a joyful submission to it. Yielding both active obedience and passive submission.

In affliction, humble walking with God cries, “It is the Lord! Let Him do what seems good to Him.” When the Lord bids me serve Him, I must plead for grace to run in the ways of His commandments. And when the Lord chastens me, I must beg for patience to endure His appointments.

Walking humbly with God implies all this and much more. May the Holy Spirit teach us what a broken and contrite spirit means and keep us always low before the Lord. The practical result of this inward humbling will be an acting toward others and a moving in all matters as under the influence of a humble spirit.

Adapted, Micah 6:8, Charles H. Spurgeon (1834 – 1892)