Walking lessons

Watch where you are going! Quit stepping on your brother’s heels! No, you can’t walk into the road yet, there’s a car! Hey! Hey! Heads up! Eyes in front! These words came out of my mouth a million times last week. And they were usually accompanied by the snagging of a kid’s shirt collar or jacket hood. I pulled more boys out of the way of approaching cars and fast walking businesspeople than I care to remember. Walking in a big city is no joke!

My family and I spent last week in the great city of Washington, DC. And we had an awesome trip! Our boys saw all kinds of new things, history came to life before their eyes, and places they had only seen on TV became real for them. But. Perhaps more important than all of the monuments we saw or museums we visited were the lessons we learned about how to walk. Seriously. These boys of mine had no idea how to walk in the city.

And I do believe there is an art form to it. While I say that I am from Atlanta, GA, I have never actually lived in the city. In the part of Atlanta where I am from, if we want to go somewhere we get in our car and drive there. If we want to take a walk, we go to the park. This is not how things work in cities like Washington, DC, though. People walk to get places. They are intentional about their walking. And they do not let anything get them off track. They do not meander down the streets with their eyes on their feet. No, they see their destination and they walk toward it.

And us Southerners from the suburbs? Well, we had to learn a few things. It was amazing, really. These businessmen in their suits and women in their heels; young folks with bags slung over their shoulders and even people laden with loads of groceries walked with such intention and purpose that I couldn’t stop watching … or grabbing my kids to move them out of the way.

“I urge you, therefore … to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (Ephesians 4:1). My head has been in the book of Ephesians lately; so Paul’s words kept coming to mind as I watched these city dwellers navigate the streets. Walking worthy of a calling. Sounds like something only super holy people can do, right? I’ve always thought that verse doesn’t apply to me. I mean, I just do regular life. That’s not really a calling.

And then I sat in a coffee shop in DC and watched streams of humanity intentionally walk down the streets of their day and wondered if maybe I had it all wrong.

What about you? Feel called to the work that you are doing today? Feel like you are walking worthy of the place where you are putting your feet? Or does it just feel like you’re shuffling through it all trying to stay out of everyone’s way? Often in my regular life, I don’t think much about how I walk. I just do it. And the circles of my day don’t feel like something I am called to do. They feel like things that simply have to be done. And I’m pretty sure I look at my feet a lot as I make my way through them.

But the people I watched walking through the city weren’t looking at their feet. They were looking at where they were going and that changed the way they walked. 

And maybe that’s what it means to walk worthy of a calling. Whether your day requires you to wear a business suit and navigate important meetings or wear flip flops and buy groceries maybe it isn’t as much about where you are putting your feet are as it is about where you are putting your eyes. 

Maybe Paul is reminding those Jesus followers in Ephesus as clearly as he is reminding us city dwellers and suburban tourists to look up; to see where we are headed and to walk toward it with purpose. 

And I don’t know what you are walking through today. I don’t know if you feel worthy of what’s being asked of you or overwhelmed by hard and hopeless looking circumstances. But I do know this. I know that the one who calls us is faithful. I know he never leaves us to navigate through these days on our own and I know that our worthiness to do the work he places in front of us doesn’t come from ourselves. It comes from him.

Jesus is the one who calls us and the one who makes us worthy of the calling. Even if we can’t see where the road is headed or how good could come from anything we are facing, he is with us. And that changes everything.

So today, wherever you find yourself walking and whatever it is God places before you to do, consider yourself called to do it. Put your eyes on Jesus, the author, and perfector of our faith and walk on my friend.  Heads up! Eyes in front! And, please no messing with your brother!“Keep your eyes on Jesus who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Becuase he never lost sight of where he was headed– the exhilarating finish in and with God …” (Hebrews 12:2-3 Msg.).