Have you ever attempted to walk across a path with holes in the pavers . . . in high heels? Or maybe you’ve tried to navigate, still in heels, an old cobblestone street . . . or a dock, where the wooden slats seemed perilously spaced apart?
It makes for precarious walking, doesn’t it? You’re never sure where to plant your foot or which direction to take. Each step is dubiously and gingerly taken.
Life can feel that way, at times. Certain situations cause us to walk very tentatively through them. And our footing feels iffy, at best.
We will explore later how to walk. But let’s first establish where to walk.
When Abram was ninety-nine years old,
the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty;
walk before me faithfully and be blameless
(Gen 17:1).
The Lord chose Abram. He called him out of comfort, into the foreign and unfamiliar. And He told him where to walk.
Before Him.
Walking before the Lord is to walk in close and committed communion with Him.
It is to keep facing Him and let Him lead us through this dark and dangerous world.
It means we stop looking at ourselves, our phones, our culture—and look up to Jesus.
And it will require that we remain intellectually, relationally, and spiritually bound to Him.
Engage your mind . . . and ask.
In a disturbing prophetic passage, the Lord told those under siege in Jerusalem to “stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls” (Jer 6:16). The rest of the verse, however, reveals their response: “But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” We often refuse to walk in His way. But we can trust it is the way to life—even when it looks difficult and rough going.
Ask . . . and pray.
Pray, as Moses: “Now then, if I have found favor in Your sight in any way, please let me know Your ways so that I may know You, in order that I may find favor in Your sight” (Ex 33:13 NASB). Or as David: “Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long” (Ps 25:4-5). We read about the faithful presence of God along their prayer-filled way.
My dear friend and brother-in-Christ, Michael Polutta, walked with God. Until he took his final step in his earthly body . . . and stepped right into the presence of Jesus. He joined the multitude of witnesses to this life of faith who have passed on since our Lord’s departure—leaving a path to follow.
His family does not follow behind on those wobbly, holey pavers previously mentioned. Though they limp on weak legs, they have a sure path to plant their feet that will lead them to where he is.
Walk before the Lord now, Christian . . . for all eternity later. Determine, like those who’ve gone before us, to walk through this wilderness exile before the Lord.
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