Walk This Way

Published by christi on July 8, 2021July 8, 2021

So you shall keep the commandments of the LORD your God

by walking in his ways

and by fearing him.

— Deuteronomy 8:6

Navigation used to be by landmarks:  Left at the boulder that looks like a praying monk, near the cave with all the bats, just upstream of the ford. My husband, as a tricycle-riding adventurer, attempted to ride to Grandma’s house down the middle of the street, because those were the landmarks he knew.

Or by the stars:  “Follow the Drinking Gourd” gave direction to slaves seeking freedom in the North.

Then there was Rand McNally and their atlases and maps with numbered highways and topographical information. Now there is Google maps and Siri…

There is the of navigation of life by tradition or culture:  Our family tests spaghetti by throwing a strand at the cupboard; if it sticks, it’s done. This is how we do life here in a climate where one can bake a loaf of bread in a car whose windows are rolled up.

Moses tells the company of Israel, the children of those who escaped from Egypt by God’s powerful and miraculous intervention, “This is how to keep God’s commandments: by walking in His ways.”

The pathway beaten by thousands of feet, the course He prescribes for life, the manner or custom that He has given us…  It’s not just tradition, it is the way He does things:  truth, justice, grace, forgiveness.

It is the Way lived out before human eyes in Jesus, who self-identified as The Way to the Father and the everyday MO of the Good News.

Keeping the commandments is not by rigid box-checking, self-righteous nit-picking, or zealous brownie-point collecting, but by staying on the path where He walks.

“and by fearing Him…” (Oh yeah, there’s that…)

The One whose voice spoke all else that exists into being, can by that same voice send our atoms into oblivion and our spirits away from Him forever. (Feeling any fear yet?)

The One whose absolute moral perfection is inherent in Himself, has demanded the same moral perfection from us. The result of His paradoxically absolute justice and flawless mercy was the sacrifice of the only one with the power to give that sacrifice of himself: Jesus Christ.

To fear Him is to reckon with the knowledge of these things. (A little reverent quaking in our boots is always appropriate.)

To walk in His ways is to act out the reality of these things. Keeping His commandments will naturally occur when these things are in place. No problem, right?

Thankfully, He sent His Spirit to inhabit and empower those who come to Him, making them able to stay on the same path and to stay so close that there is no space between Himself and us.

This is how I am…

following Jesus every day in the everyday,

Christi