Fridays are for Newspaper Articles

By now, you know the following is my weekly article published in the Canyon Lake (TX) Times-Guardian:

                                “Walking”            

It is my conservative estimate that I have walked—or run, since I did run a 5K race last month—between 1,200 and 1,300 miles since last November, when I started walking in earnest.  That means that, if I had started walking in San Antonio along Interstate 10, I would have gotten all the way through West Texas, New Mexico and Arizona by now and be somewhere out in the California desert between the Colorado River and Palm Springs.           

That’s a lot of miles walking—not to mention a couple of pairs of totally worn-out walking shoes!  And, those miles have afforded me the opportunity, when I wasn’t talking on a cell phone, to do quite a bit of praying and thinking.           

I am grateful that I can multi-task while walking (or running).  My “walk” with the Lord has definitely deepened because of the way I invest my time while hoofing the roads near where I live.           

As I have thought about it, this is my best guess as to why the Apostle Paul chose to employ walking as an analogy for the Christian life in Ephesians 4-5.  You see, if you look at a map of the Mediterranean Basin and trace Paul’s travels from the Book of Acts, he apparently walked several thousand miles on his missionary journeys (see Acts 13-21).  Undoubtedly, he also had plenty of time to think and pray as he moved along the roads connecting all those cities throughout the Roman Empire.           

But, I think there is another obvious reason why Paul utilized walking as his figure for a proper understanding of Christian living.  When you are doing the kind of walking that he was, you know where you started and, to truly get anywhere, you must have a pretty good sense of where you’re headed and what it is going to take to get there.  Of course, since you don’t know for sure what you are going to encounter along the way, you cannot know how long it is going to take to make the journey.           

In my observation, that is, in fact, pretty much the way the Christian life develops, at least if you are trying to live it in a responsible way.  You should begin by understanding your starting part: you are justified (declared righteous) through faith in Jesus Christ and His payment for your sins on the Cross (Romans 5:1).  And, you also should quickly come to know where you are headed: being glorified in the presence of the Lord (Romans 8:30)—in heaven or when Christ comes back.           

“In between”—the journey itself—is the tough, and unpredictable, part.  Like walking or driving in the Hill Country, you might have the spiritual equivalent of falling rocks, low water crossings that are at high water stage, deer running out in front of cars (I hit one when I lived here back in the late ’70s and it totaled the car!) and on and on.  There may be spiritual “scenic routes” (i.e., very indirect ways of getting there).  You simply do not know what to expect.             

But, like my walking time—and, more and more, my driving time—there is the wonderful opportunity to pray and think as you proceed.  That means that, even if the obstacles which inevitably pop up are highly frustrating, they do not have to be unprofitable.           

What do I mean by that?  Simply that it is possible to learn and grow spiritually from everything that we encounter in life, no matter how utterly aggravating the situation might be.  Just as the level of my physical fitness is dramatically better than it was a year ago from the 1,200-1,300 miles of walking I’ve done during that time, so will the maturity level of my spiritual life grow correspondingly if I will but choose to walk step-by-step with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:16).

What is the biggest sticking point that keeps Christians from walking in the Spirit?  Well, for me, the hardest part of physical walking is getting off my rear end and getting out there and putting one foot in front of the other for the first few steps.  Could it not be that many Christians are the same way: spiritual “couch potatoes” who are just too lazy to start walking those first few steps by faith?

 

 

Coming Monday: Break in series (Continued): “First Thoughts toward an Agenda for SBC Reform”