"During the happy years I spent in Italy, I grew fond of the Italian custom of a passeggiata -- a casual stroll, always with a friend, usually after a good meal, in the evening when the sun began to set and the breezes arrived.
A passeggiata is a ritual. If someone asks you to go on a passeggiata, it is a compliment. It means he or she enjoys your company and wants to get to know you better. The conversation on this walk is usually substantive. You end it by having shared something significant with each other."
-- from Doers of the Word
The reading today made me start thinking about all the Old Testament people who "walked with God." From the time of Adam and Eve forward, it seems to me that God was always "out looking" for someone who would walk with Him and talk with Him. We tend to think of God "up there," watching us, so to speak, from a distance, but the Bible reveals a God Who is more what Jesus describe as the Paraclete. Paraclete is a Greek word meaning "One Who is called alongside [us]." It comes from the roots "para" -- alongside--- and "caleo"--called.
It seems to me that God is always asking someone--us-- to go with Him, to stroll with Him, to get to know Him better, to engage in conversation, to refresh ourselves with His friendship at the end (or the beginning) of the day. In Genesis 3, Adam hears "God walking in the garden in the cool of the day," and hides from Him. Now we all know that when a child is hiding from mama, something is going on---it's time to start asking some questions.
In Genesis 12, God invites Abraham to walk with Him to "a land I will show you." On the way, Abraham really gets to know this God who accompanies Him on the journey. Sometimes, he must wonder where God was -- when Sarah is taken into Pharoah's harem, for example---but always, always, God is there, saying, "I got this, Abraham." Without that journey, Abraham would never have learned the faithfulness and goodness and ability of God to save. He had to walk a long ways to learn trust.
Jacob also had to "walk" with God to learn Who God was. There is some indication that maybe Jacob was not entirely a monotheist at first; he learned to choose God based on Yahweh's faithfulness to him (see Gen. 28:20). None of these Old Testament characters, any more than we ourselves, were "born" trusting Yahweh, or knowing Him as their God. They learned to trust as they walked with God through the years and experiences of their lives.
One of my favorite people in the Bible is Enoch. Even though the Bible contains only 4 sentences about Enoch, it is enough: Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away (5:24). Enoch walked with God for 300 years before he was taken away.
In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke tells us this: When [the people] saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus (4:13). Luke could just as well have said, "these men had walked with Jesus." It was important for them to walk with Jesus from one place to another so they could get to know Him and He them. I wonder whether Judas actually "walked" with Jesus too, and conversed with Him one-on-one, or if he just tagged along with the crowd. I think maybe he may have been "hiding" from Jesus as did Adam from God.
Our imagination is a great gift; it allows us to experience things that may never actually happen to us in the physical realm. Maybe we can engage our imagination to allow us to see and hear God walking with us today, listening to us, laughing with us, eating with us. And maybe tomorrow, we will hear Him say, "Come, walk with Me today; I want to tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know" (Jer. 33:3).
I think Ruth's words to Naomi, her mother-in-law, might be a wonderful model for us in regard to God:
Where you go, I will go, and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God my God.
And then let us watch to see where God will lead us; we may be very surprised!
You must have (had)some marvelous men in your life that you can feel so comfortable with your manifestation of God as a father figure.
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