In Genesis 5:24 we’re told that Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. It’s one of those enigmatic sentences in Scripture that is just loaded with meaning if we would just stop long enough to understand it.
One of the things that I love about our new location is the walks – we can just step out the door of the house and be in true countryside in a minute. There’s something about walking together that allows for a different pace of conversation, a different way of talking. There’s space for silence, for communication, for reflection on what has been said. Somehow, the act of walking makes those spaces easier, more natural. In Bible terms then, walking, is more than just moving in a certain direction, it’s walking with communication – not the non stop noise of today’s world, but an easy companionable moving with someone else in the same direction and with a common understanding and purpose.
Enoch understood this – it is rare to have such a straightforward relationship with God, but it is the goal. From Adam and Eve in the Garden before the fall, through to the heavenly city a relationship with God is what is on offer by God and desired by God.
If Enoch could, then we can. I think this, in part is what Brother Lawrence was trying to express in his ‘The Practice of the Presence of God’, I believe other godly men and women through the ages have done the same. The wonder of Enoch’s story is that as he walked and talked he and his God became closers and closer until God just took him home. As a believer, as a child of God, what better hope could we have for our lives than that we too could walk with God until he calls us all the way to be with him forever?
