Act Justly. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.

When I was fourteen, my parents gave me a watch as a baptism gift. Micah 6:8 was engraved on the back: "Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God."

I've had a lot of Bible verses in my life. Verses I memorized, verses I highlighted, verses I heard in sermons and forgot by lunchtime. But this was one of the first I really took ownership of.

There's something different about the ones you take ownership of. Not the ones someone gives you. Not the ones you're told to memorize. The ones that become yours.

And this one became mine.

I don't wear the watch anymore. But I still have it, and it sits in my bedside table, and I see it most mornings.

It's such a great little physical reminder. Because we have a way of making faith complicated. We layer it with rules and rituals, with things we're supposed to do and things we're supposed to feel.

We wonder if we're praying enough, reading enough, believing hard enough. We chase a version of faithfulness that always seems just out of reach.

And then there's Micah 6:8.

The prophet isn't handing down a long list. He's answering a question people had been wrestling with for centuries: What does God actually want from us?

Three things. That's it.

Act justly. Not just believe in justice, but live it. In the small decisions, the ones no one else sees. In the way you treat people who can do nothing for you.

Love mercy. Not tolerate it. Not offer it when it's convenient. Love it. Mercy is only mercy when it costs you something.

Walk humbly with your God. Still learning. Still needing. Not performing faith from a distance but being shaped by it from the inside.

Three commands that sound simple and take a lifetime to live out.

On the days when faith feels like an overwhelming list of requirements, this cuts through the noise.

God isn't asking for perfection. He's asking for a direction.

Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly.

That's enough.