"I'm Going to Try to Live by That," He Said

"Did you tell Mom about the call you got yesterday from [a rancher friend]?" Jonathan asked Danny this morning. 

"No," Danny said, as I turned around from where I was putting his lunch sandwich together. His face had broken into a huge smile. I knew something was up.  

The rancher friend, who had listened to Danny's message from Micah 6:8 Sunday morning, had called him yesterday to ask Danny to remind him what his three points were. They had come straight from the Scripture. 
"What does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."

Rancher friend also asked where that Scripture was found. 

"I'm going to try to live by that," the rancher said.

That is what brought a big smile to more than Danny's face, but also to Jonathan's and mine. 

And I feel quite sure,

God's face. 

This rancher friend is simple and sincere in his desire and decisions to honor God. Coming alone to church of all his family, he has tried to make it each Sunday ever since he had a stroke about 8 or 9 years ago and nearly died. Our pastor's wife was on the ambulance crew at that time, and our rancher friend gratefully and publicly credits her with saving his life. 

Since then, he has been more and more concerned about what God wants of him.  It has been a delight to know him, and to know that God is moving not only on the native reservations here but in the prairie fields and valleys of the South Dakota ranchlands. 

Busy with bulls, branding, and baling hay (pray that his hay that has been lying damp for two weeks will dry out and be able to be baled and used) he still prioritizes showing up at church, supporting it financially, and eagerly fellowshipping with the church folk at the carry-in meal after service. He sits right down across from native people with zero concern what color of skin or ethnicity and just visits and enjoys hearing about others' lives. 

"I'm going to try to live by that," he said of this little Scripture in a very small book of the Bible, but I think God loves people like this rancher friend from way back in the boonies of South Dakota.