Pastor Kory’s Page for February 2025
I’ve been reading a book lately on the science of walking and running. It’s entitled Born to Walk. Its main point is that the human body is designed for walking. This is evident from our human anatomy. Our metabolism also responds best to walking and being on our feet throughout the day. Walking is also an important component of maintaining our mental health. God knew what He was doing when He designed our feet, joints, heart, lungs, and brain for walking.
Consistent walking is one of the best things we can do for our long-term health. Regardless of how fit we are, we all need to walk. We were not created for sedentary lifestyles. Thankfully, even small doses of walking are still beneficial, especially when done consistently over time. I’m trying to integrate more short walks into daily life, whether around the church building on a cold day, or by parking at the back of a parking lot when I go to the store, or by leashing up our dogs, who are always eager for an outing around the neighborhood!
Through much of history, unless you owned a horse, you had no choice but to walk! In today’s world, walking is merely a form of recreation or something we do in short stints as we navigate around our homes or workplaces, but the people we read about in the Bible walked almost everywhere. Other than a short ride on a colt into Jerusalem, Jesus spent His life walking around the Holy Land, making many long North-South trips between Galilee and Judea.
Walking was such an essential part of life that the Bible uses it as a metaphor for our relationship with the Lord. Some 200 times, the Bible talks about walking, usually in the sense of walking before the Lord, walking in His ways, or when warning us about walking in darkness.
Just after Adam and Eve fell into sin, “they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8), but instead of walking toward Him, they began to hide from Him. Ever since that day, it’s been a struggle for us to walk with the Lord and to walk in His ways. Our sinful human nature would rather walk away from the Lord and the perceived restraints He puts on our lives. Left to ourselves, we’d be walking a direct route to hell.
God be praised, though, that He didn’t abandon us. He sent His Son, Jesus, to enter our human flesh and walk in our shoes. In a sense, Jesus’ life on earth was one long, deliberate walk toward His cross. He did many other great things along the way through His neighborly care and teaching and miracles, but ultimately, Jesus came to lay down His life for us. In doing so, He took the punishment for all our failures to walk according to God’s Commandments.
Then, on the same day that Jesus triumphantly rose for us, what’s one of the first things that He did? Jesus suddenly appeared and went for a walk with two disciples who were leaving Jerusalem (Luke 24:15). In their conversation, Jesus revealed to them how the Old Testament Scriptures revealed Him and pointed toward His death and resurrection.
Because Jesus came and walked blamelessly in our place, carried our sins to the cross, and rose for our redemption, we can look forward to walking with the Lord eternally, just as Adam and Eve did for a brief time in Eden. Revelation 21:24 tells us that, in eternity, the nations will walk by the light of the Lamb. What a day that will be! And what a day it will be when we walk with our Lord, face-to-face, with no more aches and pains and no more stumbles into sin.
Until that day, we continue to “walk by faith, not by sight” (1 Corinthians 5:7); and “walk in the light, as He is in the light" (1 John 1:7); and “love one another’’ and “walk according to His commandments” (2 John 5-6). Just like physical walking, walking with the Lord is also good for you. It’s what you’re made for! How we walk spiritually and behaviorally is a witness of our faith and a way of giving thanks to the Savior who walked the road of the cross for us. So, let’s keep encouraging one another, not only to get in our physical steps, but also to keep walking faithfully with our Lord throughout all the seasons of life.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Kory Janneke