"And Enoch walked with God..." Genesis 5:24

It has been the habit of my Christian life to practice the discipline of walking and praying. It may be less of a commentary on my piety and more of a commentary on an adult with some kind of attention disorder. It may also stem from the idyllic vision of Enoch described by Moses in Genesis 5:24. I want nothing less to be said of my life than that at least I walked with God. Is there any more that we ought to reach for in life? I am praying as I walk with Christ.

Feeling such an obligation in my conscience for duty before His people, the Saturday night prayer walks are particularly pointed and driven. I want to live so that on the great day God does not say to me, "Eric, what were you thinking?" Hence, we pour over it together on Saturday nights.

How many burdens have been unloaded on the usual trek? God knows. What a marvel, "the prayer of the righteous is His delight" (Proverbs 15:8). I reserve that term delight for just those few special experiences that I most relish. God takes relish in my cries for help that are really confessions of utter lack. Who does not understand Vernon Grounds' metaphor of swimming up stream against the current... with one nostril out of the water? Every pastor does.

The old lyricist really did understand something of what I am realizing, "in seasons of distress and grief, my soul has often found relief, and oft escaped the tempter's snare, by thy return sweet hour of prayer". Being heard is therapeutic, but being entertained by the Almighty is a bit over the top and overwhelming. Often I will walk at night, before a waxing or waning moon that looks stunning and I marvel at this One I am sharing company with who hung the moon (literally!) that very night. "What is man that you are mindful of him?" Psalm 8:4

Don't get me wrong, I have taken prayer walks that were arid. Some nights it is all by faith with no attending sense that He is present. Jack Hayford said years ago that on Saturdays he pours his heart out to God and some Saturdays its nothing. It is on those very nights that he concludes reminding God that he believes he had been heard, even when those "ceilings are brass".

Andi and I started walking more together this summer on a regular basis. There is something about walking that stimulates good conversation and communion. We have enjoyed the discipline. While I love to walk with Andi, I still have not recovered from the opportunity that is mine to walk with God! Wasn't it Bob Cook who always closed his radio broadcast with that inviting quip, "Walk with the King today!"?

Not all walks with God are created equal. A couple of Saturday nights ago God broke into my walk and caused quite a stir. Isn't our God the Lord of the forest as well?

After dark I walk with a flash light. I walk on a country road against the traffic and turn on the light to alert oncoming traffic of this praying pedestrian. Of course, some evenings I am very distracted and lack focus and my prayer must seem like a non-sensical jeremiad. But this particular night I was dialed in and earnest. I was moving forward about half way through the walk nearing the place next to the woods where I turn around and head for home. The quiet placid evening was reshaped by a stirring sound next to my left foot. It was dark and I had not seen any movement in the ditch, although I was not scanning for it at all. The sound was so vivid and close I chose to turn on the flash light to discern just what I had heard with the wrestling sound in the hardened dry grass next to the road...and right next to my left foot. I turned the light down to shine on my shoe... and encountered a skunk. The light was only on long enough to scare the both of us. He then immediately headed east back into the woods and I headed west as fast as I could go. Needless to say, I lost my place in prayer. God was gracious. The skunk chose not to spray me. I got about seventy five yards away and circled back around a row of houses wondering now if I would be shot as a prowler scissoring up side yards to angle back to the road. God must have laughed and I did too...after I was sure I was free to get out of the neighborhood and not smell like a skunk. It was not my first encounter with skunks on a prayer walk down that road. Once before when sleep fled out of anxiety, I got out of bed to pour my anxious thoughts out when I encountered a skunk up ahead...who blocked my way back home. Do you know how frustrating it is to try to figure out how to out wit a skunk at 2:30 A.M. when he is sitting next to the road that you have to pass through on your way back home?

And so, that was a skunky prayer walk! Many of the walks evaporate into a reservoir of memory that is irretrievable but that leave an after taste of pleasure for having been heard by the Judge of all the earth! But I'll remember that walk and that skunk...who was approximately two centimeters from my left shoe.

If you take up prayer walks, the first rule is not to step down hard on a skunk en route! Keep walking! Rule number two is include me in the mix. I covet your prayer.

"We ought always to pray and not faint." Luke 18:1

"For once you have begun to walk with God, you need only keep on walking with God and all of life becomes one long stroll-a marvelous feeling." -- Etty Hillesum, Auschwitz Survivor