April 4

Walking with God

“Walk humbly with thy God” (Micah 6:8).
“Noah was a just man . . . and walked with God” (Gen. 6:9).

God never goes back, and if we walk with Him, we never shall. Walking is a regular uniform motion, step by step, each one in advance of the last. It is not a rush, a leap, a spurt, but a steady progress from one point to another. Those who walk with God are not always speaking of balmy days and bright hours of fellowship that are gone. It is better with them now than ever in the past. They do not now and then climb to ecstatic heights and then descend into the valley of lukewarmness. The Christian life with them means steady progress. They go from point to point, from strength to strength, enjoying more, loving more, understanding more, receiving more, and giving more—in all respects they go forward. Such Christians are never satisfied with present experience, “the goal of yesterday is always the starting-point of today.”


Napoleon believed that still further conquests were necessary to the existence of his empire, that only by pushing its bounds farther and farther could he retain the territory he had conquered. In the Christian life this is certainly true. Going forward is the only security against going back. It is much to be born of the Spirit, and still more to be filled with the Spirit, but these experiences do not exempt us from the necessity of daily progress in Divine things. By slow degrees the likeness of Christ is perfected, as day by day we sensibly dwell in the secret of His presence.
Walking with God means step by step in the will of God. A man who carries a lantern at night does not see the whole path home. The lantern lights only a single step in advance, but when that step is taken another is lighted, and so on until the end of the journey. In like manner God lights our way. He makes one step plain, and when we take that, another, and then another. We have nothing to do with life in the aggregate. Each moment brings its duties, responsibilities, burdens, and needs. Our business is to live a moment at a time, and that moment for God. Dr. Kitto’s advice is, “Think not on a holy life, but on a holy moment as it flies. The first overwhelms by its immensity, the other sweetens and refreshes by its lightness and present stimulus; and yet a succession of holy moments constitutes a holy life.”
(From New Testament Holiness by Thomas Cook. Used by permission of the Epworth Press).

So may’st thou walk! from hour to hour
Of every brightening year;
Keeping so very near
To Him, Whose power is love, Whose love is power.

So may’st thou walk! in His clear light,
Leaning on Him alone,
Thy life His very own,
Until He takes thee up to walk with Him in white.
—Frances Ridley Havergal.

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