The mother of four growing children went to a counselor because she felt that she was a failure. She had trained for ministry and had hoped to serve the Lord as a missionary overseas. But instead, she fell in love and married a widower with four children. Barely able to keep her household functioning, she was not able to engage in any formal ministry. She wrongly concluded that God was subjecting her to well-deserved chastisement.

A Christian counselor pointed her to Micah 6:8, which asks, "What does the Lord require of you?" Immediately that question is answered, "To do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." Those requirements she could meet without going to a foreign mission field. And meet them she did!

Her experience calls to mind Martin Luther's advice to people who believed they could please God by journeying to a sacred shrine: "Let anyone go on a pilgrimage who feels compelled to do so; but let him remember that God can be served a thousand times better at home by giving the money the journey would cost to his own wife and children and bearing his cross with patience."

Remember, God requires justice, mercy, and humility—no matter where we live.  — Vernon C. Grounds