Walking

When Abram was ninety-nine years old Yahweh appeared to Abram and said to him, I am God Almighty, walk before me and become all you were ever meant to be.                                               Genesis 17:1 (Author’s translation)

Thus says Yahweh, “What wrong did your fathers find in me that they distanced themselves from me, and walked after worthless idols and became worthless.                                                                Jeremiah 2:5 (Author’s translation)

            Here are two of the more dramatically contrasting verses in Scripture. Do you want to become a puff of wind, a tumbleweed? Just walk (conduct your life) in the ways of the world. Make your desires primary, and try to manipulate the forces of the cosmos in such a way as to fulfill those desires and you will make yourself worthless. How is that? You will have lived your life for nothing. That is true for two reasons. First, it is true because your desires can never be satisfied. Enough is never enough, and you will never find rest. Second, your desires will die with you. So, in the end you will have devoted your life to nothing.

            On the other hand, if you go on a life-long walk with your Creator, subordinating your desires to his desires for you, you will become all you were ever meant to be. Where do I get that? The last word in Genesis 17:1 is the Hebrew tammȋm. The King James Version translated it with “perfect.” What that meant in 1611 was complete, finished, grown-up. It is the word used for a sacrificial animal. It did not have to be a show animal, but it had to be all that that kind of an animal was supposed to be. Today it is popular to translate the word with “blameless” which, unfortunately, can suggest that a person can be quite blemished in practice, while but “blameless” through faith.

            That’s not what God is saying. He is saying that if you will walk with him, you can be gracious, compassionate. In short, a person for others. And, you see, that is to lay up treasure in heaven, because there is only one thing that lives forever: people. Live the world’s way and you have lived for nothing. Live God’s way and you have invested in eternity.