Walking the Walk

To know and not to do is really not to know.
-Steven Covey

I have a mind that plays tricks on me. I can, and often do, think myself into believing that I did something when I really didn't. For example, our aunt and uncle travel extensively and will usually send packages for the kids from wherever they happen to be at the time. They'll be kind enough to email or call and tell us that the package is on the way, and I will file it away in my mom-cabinet (you know, the place where all of those little details go so you can retrieve them again at a moment's notice) so I know to be on the lookout. I will think to myself, "As soon as the package arrives, I need to send a quick email to let them know it got here safely." I will think this many times before it even makes it to our doorstep and so by the time it does arrive, I feel as if I've already sent the email! I then go about my business until a week or so later when my aunt calls to make sure we got the package and I honestly answer, "I could have sworn I emailed you!"

This kind of thing happens more often than I'd like to admit...

I can get into the same trouble with my Christian walk. You know that phrase, "If you can't walk the walk, don't talk the talk"? Well, I sometimes am guilty of talking the walk instead of walking it. I tell my children to do things a certain way, I share devotions and discussions at my rehearsals and Bible studies at the church, when asked to pray out loud I've had enough practice to know just what to say. Overall, I can sound really good, and at times even have myself convinced. But I'm still a long way from where I'd like to be in my spiritual maturity level. Knowing isn't nearly as active of a verb as doing as the quote above reminds us.

Reading through Genesis this past couple of weeks ('cause you know, when January 1st rolls around, those programs for reading through the Bible in one year sound really enticing) I came upon what seemed to be a very dry passage listing the people in Adam's lineage. Seth...Enosh...Kenan... Each paragraph gives the lifespan of the ancestor, mentions that they had a bunch of kids, and ends with, "...and then he died". All except one:

And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.

Enoch didn't just live, he walked with God. Not in front of him, as I often try to do; not behind him, dragging his feet. But with him. There was obviously something special in that relationship, something that set it apart from the other men in that list. Enoch walked the walk. And God took notice and "took him away" after a long and fruitful life.

I have found myself thinking about Enoch a lot lately. What did that walk look like in practice? I wonder. What were his day to day activities? How did he raise his family? How did he get from thinking and talking about God to actually having a genuine path through his life with two distinct sets of footprints, side by side? Oh, to be a bystander, back in Enoch's day! How did he do it?

What this simple passage shows me is that the exact how isn't all that important, and probably looks quite different for each of us. He wants relationship with us, his sinful children, warts and all. He wants us to say, "Wait up! I'm coming with you!" or "Slow down a bit so I can catch up!" He wants our hand in his, through the good and bad. Knowing isn't enough. The relationship is about the doing. Enjoying day to day chats with God, humbling ourselves (even minute by minute!) enough to ask forgiveness, and serving our brothers and sisters...could it be that simple? Enoch knew. He didn't just live life; he walked it.

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