“I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; I will surely bring together the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in its pasture; the place will throng with people.”
~ Micah 2:12
Hi James and Ellen,
How important is money to you? Having a lot of money means that you will be able to buy a lot of things and do a lot of things. Having a lot of money means that you will be able to live in a large house and drive a nice car. Not having a lot of money means that you will be thought of as being poor. How important is it to you to be able to buy things or to go to different places or to have a large house or to drive a nice car? Sometimes guys and gals – and even kids, think that the only way that they are going to be happy is if they are rich. To be rich to most guys and gals means to them having a lot of money, having a lot of things and having a lot of land. How much money, how many things and how much land do you think would make a guy or a gal happy – if the guy or gals thinks that the most important thing in life is to be thought of as being rich? What would make you the happiest – having a lot of money or having a lot of things or having a lot of land or having a lot of friends? Guys and gals invariably think that having a lot of money, having a lot of things and having a lot of land would make them the happiest. Micah – in Micah 2, writes about guys who saw fields and houses that they really wanted to have so they took the fields and houses from the guys who owned the fields and who lived in the houses. Micah also writes in the book that was named after him about guys who found ways to cheat other guys so they could get what those guys owned. Micah tells you in what he has written that these guys would lie in bed thinking how they could be richer. Micah was a prophet who wrote one of the books in the Old Testament. Micah saw what God’s specially chosen people – the Israelites, were doing. Micah knew that the Israelites were disobeying God’s instructions on how they were to live their lives – which was to worship only Him. Micah knew what would happen to God’s specially chosen people if they continued to live like they were living – which was through stealing, cheating, lying . . . God’s specially chosen people thought that they could achieve happiness through having money, things and land instead of looking to God for happiness. The guys were making enemies instead of friends. Micah walked around telling God’s specially chosen guys and gals what was going to happen to them – that an enemy would come and take them away as slaves. Micah lived during the same time as Isaiah. God’s specially chosen people would not have an excuse when an enemy of the Israelites did what God said would happen. An enemy would take everything that the Israelite guys had taken or owned.
While your grandmaa and grandpaa were in Bolivia, they helped to start up a Bible education program. Your grandmaa and grandpaa called the Bible education program El Centro de Capacitación. El Centro de Capacitación in English means the center of learning. The guys who agreed to study in El Centro de Capacitación were asked to move with their wives and kids to Concepción – which is the town where El Centro de Capacitación was located. Your grandmaa and grandpaa stayed in rooms that are in the back of the church that is located on the same property where El Centro de Capacitación students, their wives and their kids stayed .There were times when there were over sixty guys, gals and kids staying in the small rooms that are on El Centro de Capacitación property. Each room is smaller than your bedroom. The two rows of rooms looked like the rooms of a motel. Each student and his family stayed in a room. Some of El Centro de Capacitación students had three or four kids – or more. Do you think that the kids of El Centro de Capacitación students liked living in such small rooms? A number of the kids – before their dads agreed to be students at El Centro de Capacitación, lived in villages where the houses in the villages had grass or thatched palm leaf roofs, walls which had been made from plastering a mud mix over sticks or out of bricks that had been made from mixing mud and straw and dirt floors. How would you like to live in a house like that? Your grandmaa and grandpaa really liked living with the El Centro de Capacitación students and their wives and kids on El Centro de Capacitación property. El Centro de Capacitación property covered a quarter of a square block. Most weekday afternoons your grandpaa played volleyball or fulbito – which is a played with a small dead soccer ball, with El Centro de Capacitación students and older boys on El Centro de Capacitación property. Your grandpaa each Sunday afternoon would take El Centro de Capacitación students in his pickup to different nearby villages where El Centro de Capacitación students and your grandpaa would play soccer against the guys and boys who were living in the village. El Centro de Capacitación won almost all these soccer games.
The kids whose dads were students at El Centro de Capacitación in Concepción, Bolivia were happy. The kids had friends. The kids were able to go to a school that is Concepción. The ma and dad of each kid were happy. Why? The kids’ folks were studying the Bible. The kids’ folks wanted to do what God wanted them to do. The kids’ folks were learning how to pass on to guys, gals and kids what they were learning. The kids’ folks were finding out that real happiness came from knowing God and not from having money, not from having things and not from having a nice house. The kids’ folks were discovering that happiness came from caring for other guys, gals and kids. Micah did leave God’s chosen people with some hope when he wrote what is now verse 12 “I will surely gather all of you, O Jacob; I will surely bring together the remnant of Israel. I will bring them together like sheep in a pen, like a flock in its pasture; the place will throng with people.” Sheep will obediently follow the sheepherder. Jesus can be your sheepherder if . . . you will be like sheep today if you are obediently following Jesus’ path as Jesus leads your lives.
Micah 2 (40)