Have you learned to walk?

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Micah 6:8

The loud, brash Christianity of America today that resembles the entertainment of the world is a distant cry from the humble walk.

Coolness...being relevant or attempting to be acceptable to the world for the purpose of evangelism might be what people want but it isn't what God is looking for.

We want action, God wants stillness!

"Be still and know that I am God."

The humble walk is anything but cool. It isn't an attention getter. It is what turns worldly people and carnal Christians off. Consider the modern rock music of the churches today with its wiggling about and fancy lighting and fog machines. Would you call it "sacred music"? Not unless you are trying to find a way to justify it because it simply does not fit the idea of being sacred in fact for the modernist Christian the word Sacred is anathema - boring, stuffy, dull or even considered to be un-evangelistic.

To walk humbly means to remove all distractions especially the distraction of our own ego and what we think we want, need or deserve. To walk humbly means to come to God just as I am without one plea, removing all the vanity and trappings.

A murderous communist once said that religion is a crutch. He meant it as an insult and excuse to use totalitarian means to imprison and execute the religious but in a way he was right. He just did not understand that all of us are cripples... crippled by sin and in desperate need of help. To walk humbly is to see that we are not spiritual super heroes but we are feeble and need to lean and depend on God as we take each step.

The modernist Christian does not desire self abasement. They want spiritual self esteem. Sermons that are always uplifting. As one man said to me, "I want to leave the service feeling better about myself." Worship has become about what we want and what we think the world wants rather than soberness, discipline and the mortification of the flesh.

Adam once had a humble walk with God. Then he and Eve wanted more. In their minds by eating the forbidden fruit they would become more godlike. Philosophically they could reason that God was testing them to see if their desire to be like him was strong enough that they would desire to have their eyes opened to the mysteries of good and evil. They thought certainly if something were that attractive and attention getting it must be useful for the purposes of serving God.

The doctor told my mother that she needed to use a walker but she was resistant to the idea. She would get up and grab the walker with one hand and pull it along beside her rather than keeping it in front of her to lean on and steady herself with. Getting old is a humiliating experience as we lose our self dependence. Getting old has it's purposes though. It is a preparation for entering heaven. Little by little we lose everything and then we lose our independence. "When we are weak, then we are strong" because we become utterly dependent on the Lord.

This humble walk with God is the realization that God is not impressed by how we envision ourselves proudly dancing into glory, "will I dance for you Jesus?", when the Bible tells us that John the beloved fell before him like a dead man utterly prostrate before Christ's tremendous power and glory.

Don't get me wrong. I do not speak as one who has "mastered the art of walking". I stumble along depending on God to catch me and keep me stable. Humility is something that is contrary to our natures... we always want more, it is easy to say "whatever state I'm in to that I'll be content" but altogether another thing as we lose things and find our "state" to be less today than it was tomorrow.

So do the "boring stuff." Just you and God alone. Praying alone. Contemplating a scripture verse alone which is meditation. (meditation is tomorrow's devotion)