Walking with God
Challenged by Enoch’s faith, and his walking with God, I decided to experiment yesterday by spending the day more consciously ‘strolling around’ with the Lord. Let’s face it, it’s not easy to do that with someone that you can’t see (or hear, most of the time). Perhaps that’s why Enoch’s faith in God was expressed in his walking with him. And so I decided to treat the day as an extended walk. Perhaps this comes as a surprise to some readers, and you might assume that every day is like that for me: I’m sorry to potentially disappoint, but that isn’t true. As an activist I tend to rush around for God rather than walk around with God.
Determining to walk with God meant asking Him many small (and occasionally big) questions, sharing some of my confusion with Him, consulting Him on small decisions and asking Him to direct me, and offering prayers for situations that I encountered through the day. It meant that when I faced a moment of disappointment, I shared a time of sighing with Him; and when I got up to speak at an event in the morning, I was more diligent than usual to ask for His help and direction. And there were moments of tension during the walk, too, when I sensed that God was letting me know that He was unhappy with some areas of my life. And it wasn’t a walk that only affected me and Him - as the day proceeded, I sensed that there were words I had to speak to others, and attitudes I needed to embrace, because I was determined to walk with God.
Walking with God: it means that we determine each day to go to the same place - and the same pace - as the Lord. Just as a walk with a friend only comes as a result of specific decision, so I think that the same is true in our faith walk. Yesterday’s stroll was good: what about today?