Genesis 17:1
When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless.”
You’d think that by the time a guy gets to be ninety-nine, God would have something more profound to say than “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.” Where’s the deep theology and philosophy? The hidden mysteries? The eye-popping, consciousness-raising visions and insights? But that’s mainly because we have a false idea of profundity. Fr. Benedict Groeschel says that the deepest moral counsel he ever got was given him when he went off to seminary as a young man. It was given by a little old Jewish man who said, with a thick Yiddish accent, “Be a good boy.” Like this simple instruction, God’s command to Abraham is, quite literally, the sum total of What Life is All About. The Lord is God Almighty. Walk before Him and be blameless.
