“We Make the Road By Walking (Part 1 of 4)”
“Now Enoch walked with God continually for 300 years after he fathered Methuselah, and he fathered sons and daughters. 23 So all of Enoch’s days were 365 years. And Enoch continually walked with God—then he was not there ,because God took him.”
– Genesis 5:22-25
And…
“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”
– 2 Corinthians 5:7
Walking is a controlled fall! I heard someone say that as part of a lecture decades ago. I’ve not forgotten the image. It’s ancient actually.
By simple observation we know that an infant cannot run a marathon as an infant… but could in time… and we have descriptive names for this process… we call babies ‘crawler’s’… then they pull up a bit becoming like Weebles who wobble… and then turn into toddlers who toddle away during in that drunken sailor stage of balance… whereby trial and error they begin to take small steps.
It’s not that simple… and it takes an effort… by each of us at our own pace… why even my little sister Jodi started walking at 9 months of age… then after a week or so we think she thought “this is dumb” so she went back to crawling and then 4 months later started walking again… and grew up to be a 4-year letter winner on our HS girls’ softball team…
And that’s what we know still… babies crawl… then they toddle… falling all over themselves and others… then as we grow, we learn to walk… and then we learn to run and then we run away from home… and then home can catch up to us… and over time… our running diminishes shifting our gait to walking and then perhaps we can’t walk at all and we need others to get us where we need to be.
It’s the road we all travel… one way or another… body, mind and spirit! This post and the next three I will try to flesh out some history and some helpful ways to see how as 21st century humans we still find ourselves on the ‘path’ and that we make the road by walking as the Bible provides us a way forward… Faith matters!
So… put on your ancient thinking caps… as it is an ancient image… the road that is. Animal trails were widened by human steps. Paths were created. The way gets widened… often following the water routes or along the passes from one side of a mountain to the other. The road was strengthened by bricks and concrete filled with rebar… and bridges were built as that road made connections with other roads.
We haven’t always known where we are going but we are usually happy when we get there! We make the road by walking. We walk where we live. We live where we walk and above all we discover life to be full and blessed and hopeful as we walk together rather than walking alone.
As people of faith we often describe our relationship with God as a ‘walk of faith’ or a ‘path to righteousness’ or an ‘endless journey’. Even from the early chapters of Genesis we read the man and the woman walked with God in the garden and their lives were good.
The Bible also reminds us that this same man and woman were forced to walk out of that garden into the world in all it fullness and wonder due to their desire to be God rather than be content to be loved by God. And as I read trough the pages of scripture, I find countless stories or others who walked with God… like Enoch… and those who trusted the power of God’s spirit walking more by faith than by sight…
Where has your path led you from? Who has been walking with you? And where is your walk leading you to? A place? A condition? There’s a huge clue in Jesus’ own words saying he is the truth, the life and the WAY… let’s walk together!
The Rev. Dr. Brian K. Gigee is a long-time resident of Pearland, having pastored four churches over the last four decades in Texas and Louisiana. Read more following Brian’s blog ‘murmurings’ at https://briangigee.wordpress.com/. Send comments and/or questions to godworks247365@gmail.com.
