Walking

I recently enjoyed a talk given by a friend on the subject ‘Walking with Jesus’.

It made me reflect on what ‘walking’ means to me and how it fits into my life and how that compares when I add the additional words ‘with Jesus’ to it.

So first, just ‘walking’ and what it means to me. I walk twice a day aligned to breakfast and lunch. The goal is to walk for twenty minutes or more within an hour of each of those meals. The driver for this activity for me is that I am diabetic and walking after these meals definitely lowers the blood sugar increase, as a result of any carbohydrates in the meals concerned.

But walking is beneficial for a stack of other reasons. Among them - it improves fitness and can help improve mood as well. In fact, it’s medically recognised as a safe and healthy form of exercise. This is the more so the older you are when the more active forms of exercise eg running can put an adverse or even damaging strain on your knees and ankles in particular. Your choice of footwear is important too, poorly supported feet and ankles are injury prone.

As I listened to my friend’s talk it struck me that the primary characteristic of ‘walking’ is that it is a verb. It’s an active thing. When you stop you are still - no longer moving forward but standing still.

As with my walking for health reasons so it is with walking with Jesus. If we aren’t moving forwards we are standing still. Jesus isn’t. We can’t walk with him if we are stationary. And we need to follow him with a suitable knowledge of both what we are doing and what he requires - hence the proper footwear.

Here’s a couple of the many verses in the Bible to inspire how we walk.

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8 (NIV)

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” 3 John 1:4 (NIV)

And finally there is that great incentive to walk with Jesus. We are walking toward a goal which is wonderful beyond description. Details are all in the Bible.