Shortly after having my third baby in 3 years, I realized I was no longer walking with God. I went to church, read my Bible, and was still a Christian. But actually walking with God was not an adjective that could be used to describe my daily life.
I still believed in God but I was not experiencing God in my life.
My Confusion
I envied David’s words in Psalm 42 and more than once found myself asking God if David’s words “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” is even possible in modern-day Christianity?
Does anyone’s soul actually pant after God? How do you go from simply believing in God to truly experiencing him in this way?
There is a Process
“as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” Colossians 2:6-7
Colossians shows the process of learning to walk with God. First, you receive and THEN walk. Next, you’re rooted and established.
That clause “rooted and built up” is extremely important. You can’t jump to being “rooted and established” (which we all want!) if you aren’t walking.
So now we are right back to where we started! Experiencing all God has for you begins with walking with God.
3 steps to walking with God
So how do we move from knowing about God to walking with God? Here are three steps that can help.
Step 1: Read through a Psalm and begin listing what you notice about God
Trustworthy? Clothed in majesty? Holy? Make a good long list.
Step 2: Pick one of those attributes and write it in visible places
Every time you go to make a decision or respond to a situation, ask yourself “am I letting that attribute of God rule in this moment”. This will help you begin to practice your faith by relying on the truth of Scripture instead of your own intelligence or understanding.
Step 3: Living it Out
Walking with God requires sacrifice on your part. It requires you to slow down and retrain your thoughts. It requires a little bit of work, and a whole lot of you deciding if you believe what the Bible says about God to be true or not.
So today, pick one area in your life where you can begin walking with God. Work on that one area for the next 3 months and see how rooted and built up in your faith you can become. I promise the life you’ll find as you learn to “live by faith and not by sight” will be worth the sacrifice of retraining yourself.
You Might Also Want to Read:
- How to Read Your Bible
- Experiencing God Daily: 3 easy steps you can try today
- The Spiritual Disciplines: Ways to pursue personal godliness
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
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