Peripatetics: The Art of Walking
Monday, August 22, 2005
The Early Walk vs. The Real Walk: Ephesians 4: 1--6
I was raised in church. Literally.
My mom took me to church for the first time when I was six-weeks old. Not that I remember, of course, but she brags about that. I don't think I missed many Sundays after that. Sure, there was an occasional 3-par golf day game when my dad could convince my mom to let me go about once or twice a year, but you can believe I was in church every other Sunday.
And that was my spiritual life. You went to church. There were some classes I took called confirmation classes that lasted about 6 weeks so I could take communion when I was older. I served as an altar boy. But that was pretty much it. Every night I'd kneel at my bedside and pray the Lord's Prayer and somehow it became a tradition that my mom and I recited the Nicene Creed, too. But that was my spiritual life.
No wonder I left the church and walked away from God when my dad died when I was 13.
No walk. Just religion.
Three years after that I got back involved in another church. One that talked about a relationship, but I was a teenager. It seemed more important to me that I started acting like the Christians I was now hanging around with...which was generally a good thing. You know, I stopped cussing. I stopped seeing certain kinds of movies and started attending church services in addition to youth group stuff. I began to give money to the church. I got involved in a small group Bible study. Good stuff like that. Occasionally, that could be dangerous, though. Like the night there was a record-burning deal. I wasn't much of a thinker so I got minimally invovled (hey, I really enjoyed most of my records so I just burned the ones I really didn't like that much) but I should've seen how silly that was.
Again...
...it wasn't a walk. It was just a new way of doing religion for me.
Then, it all clicked. About the end of my senior year, God was showing me that it wasn't by walking worthy that I'd have a good relationship with Him, but rather the other way around: If I had a good relationship, I'd walk worthy.
I didn't know it at the time, but it was straight out of Ephesians 4: 1--6 (from The Message):
"In light of all this, here's what I want you to do. While I'm locked up here, a prisoner for The Master, I want you to get out there and walk--better yet, run!--on the road God called you to travel. I don't want any of you sitting around on your hands, I don't want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline--not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and mending fences.
You were all called to travel the same road in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you think and do is permeated with Oneness."
Funny, but I never knew the stuff I was doing to try to make God (or my parents) happy was really "strolling off, going down some path that goes nowhere."
I had all these fits and starts. You know? I'd get some new devotional book and read it and then after a week or so it'd be gathering dust on the shelf. I'd go to some camp thing or weekend retreat and get all fired up by the great speaker or incredible band (one time, DC Talk was just getting started and they were at our conference) and then that would wear off, too. I'd try to pray and wind up falling asleep more often than having any kind of prayer life. I'd make commitments to go to Sunday School and then stop (sure, I'd go to services and youth group that night, but NEVER youth Sunday School).
That strolling to nowhere and those fits and starts were all because I was trying to manufacture spirituality from the outside in. You know what I'm getting after. If I could just clean up a bit on the outside then for sure it would pave the way for me to have a great relationship with Christ.
But I had it all wrong.
True spirituality is an inward thing...a heart and mind geared in sync with the heart and mind of Christ. Then the thing that's real on the inside will have some things that show up on the outside.
So, for today, how do you draw the line between focusing on the outward and the inward? Why is this hard for us to do? How will focusing on the inward stuff lead to a "worthy walk" that Paul talks about in these verses?
Brent 7:24 AM
Comments:
I think we should focus on the inward first. I think that as you change on the inside your actions will change and you will show your faith outwardly. but i think it all starts with the heart. im not saying that the outward is not important, i think that it is very important. i believe that the heart is much more crucial, because the outward doesnt give you a personal walk with God the inward does.- Millard
Dear friend, listen well to my words; tune your ears to my voice. Keep my message in plain view at all times. Concentrate! Learn it by heart! Those who discover these words live, really live; body and soul, they're bursting with health. Keep vigilant watch over your heart; that's where life starts. (proverbs 4:20-23)
Post a Comment
