“WE MAKE THE ROAD BY WALKING” (part 2 of 4)
“And you will know that I have sent you this warning so that my covenant with Levi may continue,” says the Lord Almighty. “My covenant was with him, a covenant of life and peace, and I gave them to him; this called for reverence, and he revered me and stood in awe of my name. True instruction was in his mouth and nothing false was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness and turned many from sin.”
– Malachi 2:4-6
We make the road by walking. It’s not been easy… and it’s taken a long time for the way to become trustworthy. Jesus referred to himself as the truth, the life and way… and looking at those three words in reverse order… we discover the way brings life because we trust this truth we read in the scriptures. Keep reading. Keep walking. When we stop… we get stuck in the weeds!
There are many, many, images in the scriptures referencing ‘walking.’ Did I say many? Yes. Many. I’ll bet you can name a few on your own…
Like when we read the man, and the woman walked with God their creator in the garden. How good was that? Could it get any better? They thought so and when we keep reading those opening chapters of the book of Genesis, we read that same man and that same woman got walked straight out of the garden for wanting to be God themselves. They learned quickly there were others walking outside the garden, too.
And what about Noah? How many trips did he make to the edge of the woods to cut down enough lumber to build an ark? And how impressed he must have been to see all the animals walking two by two to take their place on the ark. He did not coax a one of them. It is such the good story we tell our children and grandchildren… you know how God destroyed the world for all of the unfaithful people who had walked their own way… and how Noah and his family walked off the boat under that rainbow’s promise God would never flood the world again? Yeah… that story.
But we forget how the story continued… that righteous man Noah… planted a vineyard and made some wine and his sons walked in on him drunk and naked. Yeah… the part we don’t tell our children and grandchildren, so they like me… when I did… discover that humans are quick to mess up God’s good intentions for us all… and it happens way to often!
In fact… when we look at all the ‘walking’ stories in the Bible we learn that God is always using good people and disobedient ones to accomplish good things… like when Pharoah decreed to have all the Hebrew infant males killed out fear of being outnumbered someday… it was his daughter who walked into the household with a newborn boy… who just happened to be Moses who would later lead all of Israel to walk right out of Egypt in order to return to the land Yahweh promised to Abraham who had over 400 years prior walked out of the Ur of the Chaldees to the land flowing with milk and honey. Forty years of wandering in the wilderness will make one memorable! And then Moses never got to walk down the mountainside into that land. Lesson? Lessons? Please don’t try to out-God God.
Remember… Jesus said, “follow me” and he not only walked everywhere he went… he led!
So… what do we make of all this? Are you and I any different? Do we walk with God? Do we walk in God’s ways? Are we trusting Jesus to take us to places where the walk is worth the steps? Or what about that ‘witness’ thing… where we just don’t talk the talk… we actually walk the walk? Faith matters… with each and every step… living in peace helping others turn from sin. Keep walking!
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.
