A Walk in the Woods
This is what the Lord requires: to do what is right, to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8 NLT).
In my last blog, I wrote about how a hard week caused me to seek solace by taking a long walk on a beach not far from where we live. This week, the challenges of life have not gone away. In fact, they have intensified. So, once again, I felt the need for fresh air, beauty, and time alone with the Creator. There is a Nature Trail near our home, and I went there hoping that the autumnal magic of Southwest Michigan would massage my aching soul. As I entered the woods, I began to sing. Because the Lord spoke to me through a hymn last week, I thought perhaps that he would do so again. But after two or three verses, I gave up. The lyrics were good, but there was no internal combustion.
The rays of sunshine were dancing with the leaves in a kaleidoscope of color above my head. Looking upward, I said, “Lord, don’t you have a word for me today?”. Boom. It came
immediately: I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless (Gen. 17:1). This was not the type of response I had been hoping for! Because I’d been studying the life of Abraham in my devotions, the text and its context were familiar. So, as I began my woodland journey, I compared my walk to Abraham’s. Oh my. If you have never done this, you might want to give it a try!
In Genesis 17, God speaks to Abraham after thirteen years of silence. The previous chapter tells the sad story of how Sarah and Abraham decided to ‘help’ God fulfill his promises. In other words, they attempted to accomplish the work of the Spirit in the power of the flesh. This resulted in the birth of Ishmael, and the Arab/Israeli conflict that has defined global politics for the past three thousand years! After meditating for thirteen years on what happens when we do God’s will man’s way, Abraham was ready to listen. Commenting on this moment, Oswald Chambers writes:
"The greatest fraud I have ever known is myself. “Oh, I am sick of myself” – if you really were sick of yourself you would go to your own funeral and for ever after let God be all in all. Until you get to that point you will never have faith in God. (Not Knowing Whither, p. 881).
When God spoke to Abraham, he was ninety-nine years old, but ready to listen. “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless.” This one sentence transformed Abraham’s life. I am praying it will do the same for me."
I am God Almighty. Abraham gains a new understanding of God.
For twenty-five years, Abraham had put his trust in a deity he called “God”. This is a title, not a personal name. But now, this God shows up and wants to deepen the relationship and make it personal, intimate. “You can call me El Shaddai,” God says. “I’d like for us to be friends” (see Isa. 41:8; Jam. 2:23). “My name describes my character. I am the all-sufficient One. I will be all that you need when you need it. That’s who I am.”
Walk before me. Abraham gains a new understanding of his mission.
God doesn’t command Abraham to do something spectacular or even ‘spiritual’. He simply tells him to keep doing what he has been doing for twenty-five years: walking with God. But notice the preposition. There was nothing new about walking with God (see Gen. 5:24; 6:9). Now, he is commanded to walk before God! In Hebrew, the word “before” contains the root “face”, meaning “in front of” or “in my presence”. Abraham knew what it meant to walk with God, side by side. But now, God wants him to get out in front, before his face, like a sheep that walks before the shepherd. This way, Abraham can take responsibility for his life and at the same time be directed by God himself to go to the right or to the left. Being face to face with El Shaddai was a dimension of faith that Abraham had not yet known.
Be blameless. Abraham gains a new understanding of God’s transforming grace.
Up until this point, all of God’s commands to Abraham have been to do something or to believe something. But now El Shaddai calls him to be something: blameless. The King James Version says “perfect”. The Hebrew word means whole, entire, complete, undivided. Many mistakenly believe that God is telling Abraham to live a life of sinless perfection. This is not what the word describes. God is commanding him, rather, to be blameless, not flawless or faultless. He is calling him to a place of entire consecration and absolute surrender. He is not demanding a perfection of performance, but he is demanding a perfection of love.
Note the sequence of the two commands. “Walk before me.” “Be blameless.” The second command is contingent upon the first. Walk before me in order that you may be blameless. Abraham cannot make himself blameless. Only God can circumcise the heart and fill it with perfect love (see Deut. 30:6; I Thess. 5:23-24). If Abraham will walk face to face with God, then El Shaddai will sanctify his heart.
Conclusion
I’m still processing what El Shaddai said to me on my walk in the woods. There is much I still have to learn. But this one thing I know: God is looking at my heart more than at my performance. This thought fills me with both hope and fear. So, I’m asking the Lord to do for me what he did for Abraham when he was ninety-nine years old. While I’m not expecting him to change my name (see Gen. 17:5), I am asking him to make me a new creation.
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