Excerpted from Beth Moore’s Children of the Day Bible study
The Bible unfolds with an image of God walking among His people and draws to a close with Jesus, His risen Son, doing the same. Between those corresponding divine footprints, hundreds of times and in multiple ways, He bids man “come walk with Me.” To walk “before” Him, as so many verses word the concept, is to live continually God-aware. It means knowing that God is as close as His unwavering gaze, as present and pertinent as the air around us, and His Spirit is as surely within us as the blood surging through our veins.
To walk before God is to travel down the highway with your spiritual sunroof wide open. Even when you’re looking straight ahead, hands on the wheel, you know those rays are bathing you in warmth and that wind is cleansing the air. If the clouds are thick and heavy overhead, you know what’s above them. You relish hearing from God, talking to God, and also dwelling in contented, secure silence before God, confident that He never budges.
That “secure silence” part is crucial. If misinterpreted, silence can become a one-grave cemetery for intimacy with God. We all have seasons when we don’t feel like God is near. They are temporary if we don’t break fellowship and walk off in a huff. Day in, day out, we take Him at His Word.
Come walk with Me. Even with a limp. That’s what Jacob did (Gen. 32:31). Even in the fire. That’s what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did (Dan. 3:25). Even when we feel like all hope is gone and no one came through. That’s what the two on the road to Emmaus did (Luke 24:15).
Come walk with Me, whatever shape you’re in, no matter how wounded or bruised. Just bring Me your whole heart—even in ten thousand shards—and let’s walk the rest of this thing out together (2 Chron. 6:14). “This is the way; walk in it” (Isa. 30:21). He will never lead you into the path of a freight train, but He’ll meet you in the carnage should you choose that route. He will never veer you from your destiny but, should another path seduce you, He can turn a long, ugly road back home. When you find yourself unwelcome where you thought you’d been sent, He’ll help you move on. If you walk life out with Him day to day and season to season, even what seems like the most futile detour will end up taking you to a spot where a piece of your puzzle hides.
Maybe all of this theology sounds OK on paper, but you feel a little like Hezekiah in Isaiah 38:15. Bitterness makes a soul so heavy that our feet drag like lead anchors, snagging on every stone, daring us to get too far from that place we need desperately to leave behind. Bitterness stoops our shoulders, makes the ground our only vision, and ages us far beyond our years.
Bitterness has gone on long enough. Let’s let Him pick up the pace and walk us on out. As a friend of mine says, God can do in two weeks what we turn into years. There’s some brightness out there, Child of the Light. Let’s get to it.
