What Does God Actually Want From Us?

A regular person sitting with Micah 6:8, and finding it won’t sit still.

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.”

Micah 6:8, NIV

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If you’ve ever felt politically homeless in church, you’re not alone. If you’re tired of outrage but unwilling to settle for silence, welcome. This Substack is for Christians who are tired of choosing between “serious faith” and “serious justice”—and who suspect the Bible never asked us to choose.

I’m calling this weekly newsletter The Micah Walk. It’s a small attempt to take Micah 6:8 seriously in public life, not just private devotion. Weekly articles sprinkled with periodic short notes in between as the Spirit moves.

How It Started

My good friend was the kind of guy who always seemed to have something steady to say, not in a showy way. More like, if you asked a question in the church lobby, he’d pause, think for a second, and then offer a verse that actually fit. He was quick with a prayer too. The kind of person you were glad was on your text thread when life got messy.

I remember one men’s group where someone mentioned a headline about immigrants, someone tried to smooth it over with a joke, and you could feel the whole conversation tense up like a muscle.

After group, my friend shook his head and said, “Man, I just hate how all this stuff is dividing everybody. I miss when church felt… safe.” He wasn’t wrong. Safe for some of us often meant silent for others, and it was exhausting. But my stomach was in a knot for a different reason: not just fatigue, but unease about what we weren’t saying. I couldn’t shake the question: What does God want from me—and from the church—when real people are being harmed, ignored, or pushed aside?

What I Was Taught (And What Got Left Out)

I grew up in a pretty specific kind of evangelical church, and I’m grateful for a lot of it. I learned to take the Bible seriously, to pray, to give, to show up for people, and to share my faith.

But there was a gap. Helping the poor came up now and then, often as a seasonal drive. Systemic injustice and race mostly felt “too complicated,” so we avoided it. Over time, my faith got heavy on personal piety and thin on justice. For a long time that felt normal, until it didn’t.

When the Silence Got Too Loud

I’m not going to relitigate every flashpoint of the past ten years; you lived through it too. I’ll just say this: watching my church community go repeatedly silent on things that seemed obviously connected to how human beings treat each other changed me.

Not in a hot, angry way, but more like a slow, stubborn concern. I’d sit in a Sunday service, hear a thoughtful sermon about discipleship, and think: what about the neighbor who can’t catch a break? What about the immigrant being mocked for an accent or being told to go back to where they came from? Doesn’t the love of God have anything to say about that? I started to worry we were becoming people who could sing about God’s heart while ignoring what breaks it.

When the world was on fire with questions about diversity, immigration, race, faith, and justice, the silence from church was deafening. Not from everyone. But from enough. And I couldn’t ignore it. If the Bible is this clear on what God requires, why is the church so quiet? So I went back to Scripture with a different question: “What does God actually want from his people—the full version, not the edited one?”

Three Words That Don’t Let You Off the Hook

I had read Micah 6:8 plenty of times before, maybe even on a coffee mug. But when I slowed down and sat with it, it started to feel less like a slogan and more like a mirror.

Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God.

Micah frames it like a courtroom: God calling his people to account. The people offer the usual religious trade: more offerings, more rituals, more effort. God’s answer is simple and bracing: you already know what I want. It’s not complicated. It’s just hard.

Three things. Not three suggestions. And none of them are particularly “churchy.” They aren’t about looking religious. They’re about how you live in the world, with actual people, when it costs you something.

Micah’s audience was very religious. The temple was full. The sacrifices kept coming. And God was saying: none of that impresses me if your neighbor can’t get a fair shake or isn’t treated with dignity.

Who I Am (And Who I’m Not)

Quick note: I’m not a pastor or theologian, and I don’t have a seminary degree. I’m a regular husband, father, lawyer, neighbor, and a Christian who got curious about this verse and couldn’t stop pulling on the thread. I’m not here to push a political agenda, dunk on people, or chase outrage. But I also won’t ignore Scripture, the lived experience of the marginalized, or the uncomfortable places where justice and mercy belong in the life of faith. My aim here isn’t heat—it’s light: Scripture-first, honest about history, and charitable toward disagreement.

What’s Coming Next

In the upcoming three-part series, we’ll take the three commands in turn—act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God—because each is deeper than it looks.

They also belong together. Like a three-legged stool, each one does something the other two can’t do alone. I’m still figuring this out, and my faith looks different than it did a few years ago. If any of this feels familiar, I’d love your company on The Micah Walk.

And if you know someone trying to live out their faith without checking their conscience at the door, I hope you’ll share this, forward it to them, and invite them along.