With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, 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 6:6-8 NIV).

Some of you are not old enough to remember seeing the movie Space Cowboys except in the reruns on some of the classic movie channels of cable TV! However, I saw it again the other day and it made me think of a very important principle. The movie revolves around a retired aerospace engineer who is called upon to rescue a failing satellite. He insists that his equally old teammates accompany him into space. The engineer is played by Clint Eastwood and his teammates are played by Tommy Lee Jones, James Garner, and Donald Sutherland. They all have astronautical training, but never made it into space. The day finally arrives and they are about to blast off in the space shuttle as James Garner, who is now a minister, is called on to pray. He says, “Dear God, don’t let us mess up!” And everyone answers a hearty “Amen!”