Zephaniah 2:3 Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,  you who do what he commands. Seek                righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered  on the day of the Lord’s anger.    

    I remember at school when there was an attempt at teaching character. Honestly the extent of the program amounted to some posters in the hallways and the occasional an-nouncement. There would be posters for honesty, kindness, compassion, etc. Now, I could be wrong, but I don’t remember there being much said about humility. Being humble seems a little bit out of fashion these days. It seems more common to see people making lists of demands about how they will be treated, or referred to, than in being humble. 

    But Zephaniah seems to tie being humble with a relationship with God. He says that it is the humble that will seek the Lord. I think the reason that is the case is that it is only when we have a more accurate view of ourselves that we come to realize we need God. It’s easy to find posters, pins, and T shirts that proclaim “You are enough.” The Bible seems to say, “You’re not enough. But God is!” Only the humble can really receive that message. 

    It is the proud person that does whatever they want. If they don’t want to follow rules, they declare the rules beneath them and go right ahead. But Zephaniah encourages a humble view. “Do what the Lord commands.” That whole ‘doing what He commands’ thing really strikes a dissonant chord in today’s culture. Do a Google search. What provides more hits? “Do what the Lord commands” or “You do you”? It’s not even close! ‘You do you’ is the theme of the day and is the opposite of humility. 

    We have to seek righteousness. Seek humility. Because these things are not our default setting. Good training as a child or no training as a child, we are hard-wired to want our own way of things. Zephaniah encourages us to seek God’s ways. 

    The last part of today’s verse probably rubs us the wrong way. “Perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger.” We don’t even hear a lot of that kind of talk from the church, let alone culture at large! We get uncomfortable with talk of the Lord’s anger or the need to fear the Lord. It is much easier to listen to sermons or songs about how much God loves us. God does love us. We know that because it’s in the Bible. But this verse is in the Bible also and we should not ignore it. To the degree that I focus on the parts of the Bible that please me and ignore or discount the parts I don’t like, I am showing that I still have a lot of room to grow in the area of being humble. 

    After all, He is God. I am not!

 

Blessings,     

Pastor Russ