Walking with God

Read Genesis 5:18-24

I am not much for exercising? I know that surprises some of you, but it is true, exercise for exercise sake is not my cup of tea. I’ll exercise as long as I am playing a sport or something of that nature, but just to go take a walk is unheard of in my vocabulary. There is something unique about taking a walk, however, that you cannot get by playing a game of basketball. If you take a walk with someone it can become an intimate experience. Sharing dreams, absentmindedly making yourself vulnerable about your aspirations and contemplations and getting to know the person that you are walking with is something that could never happen when you’re getting run over by a power forward on the basketball court. Because it is important for me to have those times, and seeing that I don’t like to walk much, we drive around the city!! It is not the walking that is important (at least for this devotion), it is the time spent with another.
As we read through the Bible, Genesis 5 sounds like the records kept down at the county courthouse. Name, age at death and survivors leap from the pages. But in this terse list, we are suddenly confronted with a man who stands out from everyone else. "Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him" (v.24). For those people that just skim through these types of passages, they miss someone that should be a hero among us.
We don't know much else about Enoch. He probably took care of the herds, worked the land, cared for his family. Whatever his duties were, we know that he had an ongoing conversation with God. Enoch expressed his joys, his hurts, his confusions, and the responsibility he felt for his children. He walked with God. Somewhere in his life, whether he was literally walking or just spiritually walking, he came into contact with the Almighty. He would never be the same.
Enoch must have come to love what God loves and hate what God hates. More interesting, though, the Lord was pleased with Enoch (Heb. 11:5). It is one thing to be pleased by the blessings and direction given by the Lord, but it is entirely different when you begin to wonder if God is pleased with you. One day He must have said something like: "Enoch, we've come a long way together. Why don't you just come on home and stay with Me." The ancient writer simply reports, "And he was not, for God took him" (v.24).
I think the Lord sincerely misses men like Enoch. I believe He is looking for those of us that will desire to get so close to Him that He cannot help but yearn to bring us home. I wonder how many would really be able to say if He invited you home, let’s go, or would we think, I’ve got to let my family now, make sure the bills are together, the job, or whatever else that we have become attached to is taken care of. Enoch must have been so unattached to the things of this world that he was ready when the offer came to go to the Lord. The Lord still looks for those like Enoch who will walk with Him. What a privilege for us! The One who is the Creator of the cosmos, the Ruler of heaven, and the Redeemer of mankind seeks our friendship. As one author put it, “The closer you walk with God, the less room for anything to come between.”

“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.”
-St. Francis of Assisi