Out walking

The day I can go out for a short walk is the day I know I am starting to recover from illness. It is a good feeling, first of all, to progress from being confined to a hospital bed to taking a few lumbering steps, perhaps attached to tubes. Of course there are those who cannot manage even that. You trust there are compensations for them in other ways: appetising food, loving care and attention, the sense that they are still valued members of the community, perhaps the comfort of Christian ministry by the bedside.

But God has blessed and provided me with healing and I have progressed from those first few steps to gradual strengthening, discharge from hospital and the point where I can take the fresh air and walk outside a bit further each day. It may not be much of a walk the way some people see it. I am not one of these fitness fanatics who routinely step out for five miles each day before breakfast. But to know I’ve walked at least some distance is the measure of whether I have been truly alive this day.

In the Bible, the life you live is your walk. In Bible translations that stick close to the original there are some 200 references to “walk”. Often our walk is described as being “before God”. He never fails to observe our daily conduct. In Genesis 17:1 God introduces Himself to Abraham and commands, “Walk before me and be blameless” (ESV). A misguided person may walk the wrong way. In 1 Kings 16 a wicked king walked in the sins of a previous ruler who set a bad example. Some strong-willed people walk in the stubbornness of their hearts. The apostle Paul tackled the problem of work-shy busybodies who walked “disorderly”, 2 Thessalonians 3:11 AV. Many walk “in darkness”.

But back to our real theme: good walking before God. Again, God sees it and notes it down. There are those precious ones of God’s people for whom what counts is faith in Jesus Christ, not ritual. Romans 4 describes them as those who “walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had”. You can’t go wrong if you walk by faith! Whose footsteps will you tread in today?