God’s “But as For Me” Clause

This is the verse I am praying through:

7 But as for me, I will look to the LORD;

    I will wait for the God of my salvation;

    my God will hear me. (Micah 7)

This is a summary of how I meditate on God’s word (give deep, serious, wondering, explorative, and prayerful thought), and how meditating on this testimony from God’s word has helped me this morning. 

“But as for me”

This tells me that, even in nations and churches that has so much corruption in them, and that are so deserving of judgment for the one and discipline for the other, God has provided a “but as for me” clause that allows us to be and live differently no matter how lonely (and scary) it may feel to do so. 

“I will look to the LORD”

While the world and the worldly church look to their idols, we are just as free to look to Yahweh in the name of Jesus Christ as were all the prophets who saw God’s judgment on the way, in the midst of its application, or in its aftermath. We cannot be stopped from setting our minds on the Spirit and fixing our eyes on Jesus except by our own willingness to look elsewhere. God’s invites us to be mentored by Micah and the other prophets to look to Jesus no matter what anyone else is doing and no matter what it costs us to do so.

“I will wait for the God of my salvation”

While we are mocked for this, Jesus’ servants are the ones who will not be ashamed in the end. And it is the end that matters. We all see how quickly time passes. Our lives truly are but a dream. The end of the wicked is so horrible that it doesn’t matter how much success they appear to have in their evil and idolatrous pursuits, we must not be them. At the same time, the end of the righteous is so gloriously wonderful and joyful that we can and must wait for our God to fulfil the completeness of our salvation.

“my God will hear me.”

Sometimes this is where we must put our hearts to rest. We cannot stop the judgment coming on the world, and we obviously cannot guarantee what any other church-folk choose to do, but we can rest in the confidence that our God does hear us and he will continue to do so even if we must bear the consequences of the judgment coming to others (like Joshua and Caleb, along with all the prophets, had to endure what others had brought on their people).

There are lots of thoughts of the personal application of this to our situations, but the testimony of Micah resonates for all God’s children. No matter what anyone does to dishonor our Lord Jesus Christ, the “but as for me” clause gives us an out. We have a way to walk in the obedience of faith to the glory of God, and even to the good of those people who are too afraid to follow him, by BEING who we are in Christ so that others will want to know how we walk in hope when the world around us is so utterly hopeless.

 

© 2022 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)