In Stride with God

If you attended FAC this past week, you heard “I’ll Walk With God” sung magnificently by Andrew Gross. What a great song to introduce the New Year… but not just anybody can sing it, and I don’t mean because it takes an exceptional singing voice, either.

In order to really be able to sing “I’ll Walk With God,” here are a few considerations, taken from A.W.Tozer’s Tozer Speaks to Students and based on Amos 3:3: Can two walk together unless they be agreed?

For two people to walk together, they need to agree on a few major points:

1. They will have to agree whether they want to walk together.
2. They must be agreed on the direction.
3. They must be agreed on their destination.
4. They must agree on what path they want to take.
5. They must agree on the rate of speed.

I like Tozer’s practical criteria. At the start of a new year, it’s worth spending a few quiet moments considering those five statements, asking, Do God and I have enough in common to walk together these next twelve months? Do we share the same ultimate goal, or am I more shortsighted than my Companion? Who determines the daily path? And how am I at keeping in step with Him? Am I sensitive to His pace, or must I play catch-up (or slow-down) every Sunday morning?

Oswald Chambers wrote, “In learning to walk with God there is the difficulty of getting into His stride… When I start walking with God, I have not taken three strides before I find He has outstripped me; He has different ways of doing things and I have to be trained and disciplined into His ways…The stride of God is never anything less than union with Himself."

Perhaps the biggest challenge any of us will face in the coming year is to walk with God, matching His stride. To agree with Him daily – even moment by moment – on our intentions and direction and destination and path and speed. It’s a challenge that will call for our best, and will test and refine us in sometimes painful ways… but I have a feeling that we will go places and see things we have never dreamed of, if we match God stride for stride in 2008.