“Enoch walked with God.” Genesis 5:24
“Noah walked with God.” Genesis 6:9
In Amos 6:9, God asks “Do two walk together, unless they have agreed to meet?” Two people who take a walk first must meet together to begin walking together. To walk with someone means being side by side, not running ahead or lagging behind, but keeping pace with them, moving in the same direction toward a shared destination.
Walking with God is a delight that humans experience by being in a right relationship and having fellowship with God. Walking with God is a choice we make. Enoch and Noah are two persons that God took note of in this regard. Let me share what choosing to walk with God entails.
Choosing to walk with God catches his attention, and matters most to him. In Genesis Chapter 5, we are provided the births, children and deaths of nine persons. There is nothing else noted of them, except for Enoch. Genesis 5:24 adds, “Enoch walked with God.” The interesting thing about Enoch is that he lived the shortest amount of time of all listed — 365 years.
Here’s an important point about life: Living a long life isn’t what catches God’s attention or what he takes note of. What God takes note of and matters most to him is our walking faithfully, steadily and in habitual fellowship with him, being and keeping in step with him.
Enoch’s faithful walk in fellowship with God was a testimony that Enoch “pleased God” (Hebrews 11:5).
Choosing to walk with God entails living within the unknown. Walking with God sometimes means imagining something you’ve never seen or thought about; going somewhere you’ve never been or thought about going; doing something you’ve never done or thought about doing.
Walking with God may thus put demands on our capacity causing us to s-t-r-e-t-c-h our faith. At times that may mean not knowing anything about what God wants us to do. That can be an adventurous thrill for some, or a scary situation for others.
When Abraham was called to leave his family and homeland to go to Canaan land, God didn’t tell him where he was going, just that he would show Abraham. We’re informed that by faith Abraham went, not knowing where he was going (Hebrews 11:8). In walking with God, sometimes he leaves us clueless, yet wants us to trust him with every step.
Noah had to build the ark, which was something he had no idea about and had never seen, for something he had never heard of or experienced — a flood. Noah had to enter and live in the ark, an environment he wasn’t accustomed to living in. When Noah exited the ark, he was venturing in to a world and an environment that was different from the world he had experienced before entering the ark.
Choosing to walk with God is a choice to obey God. Scripture informs that Noah obeyed God at his command: as to building the ark (Genesis 6:14-16); as to who to take in the ark (Genesis 6:18-21); as to when to enter the ark (Genesis 7:1-5), and when to exit the ark (Genesis 8:15-18). Noah meticulously obeyed God’s every command at every step.
Obedience is a human response of submitting to God’s authority. It’s often expressed as keeping or doing God’s commands. The basic meaning of it is listening, or hearkening one’s ear, to the voice of God with the intent to obey (1 Samuel 15:22).
Just think what Noah and his family would have experienced if he had not chosen to walk with God, and not obeyed him in building the ark.
Rev. Johnson A. Beaven III is senior pastor of Citadel of Faith Church of God in Christ. Contact him via email at jabeaven@gmail.com or via Twitter @jbeaven. For more information, visit johnsonbeaven.com and CitadelCOGIC.com.
