Stride for Stride
Have you ever tried to walk stride for stride with someone else? It is quite difficult. You might be able to do it for a few strides, but pretty soon, because your walk and rhythm is unique to you, and theirs to them, you soon find yourself doing left foot when they are right foot. When I played defensive back in football, my best chance to make a play on the ball was to run down the field stride for stride with the opposing player I was covering. When two people are on the same page, it is often said, “they walk in stride with one another.” My wife and I do not agree on all things, in fact we have a number of differing thoughts and opinions, but one of our great strengths is that we are in stride with each other, despite our uniqueness, despite our differences.
For those of us who call ourselves Jesus-followers, we are charged with walking in stride with God. The apostle John, when writing to the early church about truth and love, penned these words in his second epistle (epistle simply means letter), “I rejoiced greatly to find some of your children walking in the truth, just as you were commanded by the Father. And now I ask you, dear lady – not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning – that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk according to his commandments; this is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning, so that you should walk in it” (2 John 1:4-6). Scholars and theologians are split on whether “dear lady” refers a specific woman or the Christian community metaphorically.
Enoch, who did not die as we know death, but rather was taken away by God, walked with God. Here is what we read in Genesis 5.23-24, “Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” Walking with God is our way to find true life. It is not merely keeping a set of laws, checking off the boxes.
Learning to walk with God, with the goal of getting in stride with Him, is hard work. It doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a lifetime of communing with God. I will define communing with God like this – glorious fellowship that fulfills the purpose of our mere existence, which is to glorify God (Isaiah 43:7). One of the early church doctrinal documents, known as the Westminster Shorter Catechism, completed in 1647, asks the question, “What is the chief end of man?” It then answers that question with this, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”
Walking with God is a life of devotion and dedication to Him. It is a life of saying no to ourselves and yes to God. Walking with God also involves regularly striving to get back in stride with God. Sometimes being out of stride with God is because of our own missteps, while other times, it is because God’s walk and rhythm differs from ours.
Outside of God, our walk is one that is selfish, pursuing our own self interests. Walking with God begins with acknowledging your sinful nature and inviting Jesus to be your Lord and Savior. Walking in stride with God works to change our passions and our purposes. Walking stride for stride with God is a lifetime endeavor, one born out of love and obedience.
Are you walking stride for stride with God today? If not, what better time than right now to ask God for a new step – one that helps you keep pace with Him, changing you and the world around you in the process. At the end of my game of life, I would love nothing more than to hear God say, “He ran down the field stride for stride with Me!” How about you?
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