Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
It’s just a walk, after all. Or at least, it often starts that way.
God asks us to walk with him, to spend time with him. He asked Abraham to do that… and then explained that he was sending Sarah and Abraham a son, to be named Isaac. As he prostrated himself, Abraham laughed at the ridiculousness of the idea… but he got up and walked and believed.
Psalm 128 is among the Songs of Ascents, the fifteen psalms that were sung by those on pilgrimage to Jerusalem to attend a major Jewish festival (Pesach/Passover, Shavuot or Sukkot). It calls up blessings of a wonderful life, brimming with prosperity and a loving family. But it begins with a walk with the Lord.
Imagine the leper cured by Jesus in Matthew 8, imagine him waking up that day and thinking, “This is the day I approach him.” It also proved to be the day that he was cured. But it began with the courage to take that first step of a walk.
It’s just a walk, after all, that God requests. But that walk can change the world—and the way we look at it, and ourselves.