“Enoch walked with God.” - Genesis 5:24
“They will walk and not be faint.” - Isaiah 40:31
Ten thousand steps. If you are a healthy, physically fit individual, you will walk an average of ten thousand steps each day. This year, we were each given a pedometer at work to count our steps. I never realized before how much I depend on walking to move from one place to another. From my bed to the bathroom in the morning is ten steps. At work, I take between three thousand and five thousand steps each day!
Walking is a huge part of everyday life for most people. Its so normal, we rarely even think about it. Sure, athletes run, children skip, and teenagers find more reasons to drive than we thought possible. But, if you lose your ability to walk, you would probably have to alter your entire lifestyle.
I never realized the Bible makes so many references to walking – and I’m not talking about a literal mode of transportation. One of the most common phrases about walking is to “walk with God.”
What does walking with God look like? It is a faithfulness, a steadfastness, a continuous choice to follow God and to live to please him. It is a decision to obey God in the ordinary times of life. When He seems silent, you still follow. When people disappoint or frustrate you, you still follow. Walking with God is a deliberate choice in the mountains, the valleys, and the mundane to let God form you into the person He created you to be.
I think walking with God can be one of the most difficult parts of our relationship with him. It is so normal, its easy to lose sight of God and get caught up in the discouragement, busyness, or apathy so prevalent today. We can get comfortable in our lives and depend on our own strength to get us through the day.
In his book, “My Utmost for His Highest,” Oswald Chambers challenges us to live for God in the ordinary things. He says, “Walking on the water is easy to impulsive pluck, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is a different thing…We do not need the grace of God to stand crises, human nature and pride are sufficient, we can face the strain magnificently; but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours in every day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a disciple, to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus…We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people.”
God has been teaching me over and over again to walk with him daily. Each day, I have the choice to be obedient and live for him, or to do things my own way. Below are some verses from scripture, as well as quotes from Oswald Chambers I have been reading in his book, “My Utmost for His Highest” that have spoken to me regarding what it means to walk with God.
“…Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and let them up a high mountain, where they were all alone.” - Mark 9:2
“We are not built for the mountains…we are built for the valley, for the ordinary stuff we are in, and that is where we have to prove our mettle.” - Oswald Chambers
“We have seen what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to have the vision batter’d to shape and used by God? The batterings always come in commonplace ways and through commonplace people.” - Oswald Chambers
Ask God to help you walk with him each day. Even when life is usual. Even when He seems silent. Ask Him to give you the grace to be “exceptional in the ordinary.”
