“If there was a pill that people could take that would nearly cut in half the risk of stroke, diabetes, heart disease, reduce the risk of cognitive decline, depression, reduce stress, improve emotional well-being – everyone would be clamoring to take it, it would be flying off the shelf. But that pill, that magic potion, really is available to everyone in the form of thirty minutes a day of brisk walking.”
Dr. Joann E. Mason - Chief of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Professor at Harvard Medical School
So, there you have it, walking is good for you. :)
Walking as a physical discipline is clearly a good thing, especially for those of us who live in the suburbs and pretty much drive everywhere we go. But spiritually speaking, walking is more than just a powerful metaphor of our life with God.
As way of reminder, in the 1st century, people walked everywhere. Horse and buggy were not a thing until the 19th century and chariots, well, those were reserved for elite warriors. So walking was the primary mode of transportation. Hence, when Jesus said, “Come, follow me,” this was an invitation to ‘Come, walk with me.’
It’s estimated that Jesus walked roughly 3,100 miles in his three years of public ministry, primarily in the regions of Galilee and Judea. I’ll do the math for you on this… that’s roughly shy of 3 miles every single day. And at 3 miles an hour, Jesus spent roughly an hour every single day walking.
Why does this matter? For starters, I’m guessing Jesus was in great physical shape, but more importantly, because of Jesus’s pace (three miles an hour), Jesus was attentive to His Father’s voice as well as the needs of those around Him.
Maybe you’ve noticed this but when things get faster, things get louder. For example, drive at 15mph with your windows down, you can still carry on a conversation in the car, but start traveling at 65mph, well, it’s time to roll up the windows if you want to be able to hear what people are talking about.
The faster we travel, the harder it is to hear, and not just physically, but spiritually. As life gets faster (busier), it’s harder, not impossible, but certainly harder to hear what the LORD is doing… both in our lives and in the lives of those around us.
NUDGES FROM GOD
In Galatians 5, the Apostle Paul who was said to have traveled well over 10,000 miles on foot during his three-missionary journeys said this -
“So, I say, walk by the Spirit…”
Galatians 5:16
If you’re living in the 1st century, when you read these words from the Apostle Paul, you’d be thinking…
“Ok, as I walk to my neighbor’s house, or to work, or to the church gathering, I should pay attention to the Spirit of God because the Spirit of God might nudge me to see something or say something or walk in a direction, I had not planned on going.”
I’m not advocating that we become a car-less society, but I am advocating for walking with God, and not just metaphorically speaking, but literally taking walks with God throughout the day to simply pay attention to His ‘DIVINE NUDGES.’
Does God only ‘nudge’ us when we are on a physically walk? Of course not! The LORD can get our attention in a variety of ways, but my point is simply this, walking not only slows us down but it’s a good chance that we’re not going to walk with a TV screen or computer monitor in front of us. Walking unhinges us from the many distractions that often hinder or block us from hearing and/or seeing what the LORD has for us.
One more example for before you sign off…
Consider the Apostle Paul in Athens:
“People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship…”
Acts 17:22-23
Walking has a way of not only making us more attentive to the work of God in our life, but also to His work in the lives of those around us. Had the Apostle Paul not walked through Athens at a slow pace (three miles an hour), it’s a good chance he would have missed seeing the very things that were hindering the Athenians from seeing the One True God.
Please hear my heart in this. Walking is good for us physically… Dr. Joann E. Mason said so. But more importantly, walking throughout the day as a way of reorienting our hearts to the heart of God, is not only good for our hearts but it will be good for the hearts of those around you.
