I wrote back in September about the epic hike through the Colorado mountains I took with my eldest son. I wrote of how hard it was to make a final push up a steep trail to get to the Continental Divide. At the time I said to my son, “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done” (especially since we topped out at 12,500ft and I was at 300ft of altitude just 36 hours prior). Without a doubt it was definitely hard, but the excitement of the accomplishment, the beauty of the mountain top surroundings, and the joy of sharing the experience with my son, all helped motivate me to push through.
But there was another kind of challenge we faced on that trip, less of the physical challenge and more of the emotional kind. Midway through our second day we ran out of trail. The map said there should have been a trail where we were, but no matter where we looked, we couldn’t find one. Instead, we had to cut behind a lake, over a ridge, and take a long, empty, gravel service road to another trailhead. This wasn’t hard hiking compared to the first day, as roads are pretty easy to walk along, but it had none of the beauty and surroundings of the first day, none of the excitement of reaching a pinnacle or achieving a mountain top experience. Instead, we were just slogging it out down a lonely dirt road.
About a mile into this six-mile stretch we looked at one another and said, “This will probably be type 2 fun” (which means it’s not fun right now, but it will be fun when we look back after the trip). The road was tedious and we were tired. And then it started raining. After a couple of more miles of this, we stopped for an afternoon snack to try and rediscover some enthusiasm. I think we both kept hoping that some nice guy in a truck would ramble by and take us up the road and end our misery (even though we were there to hike?). After we finished our meal and started again, it sunk in for both of us that no one was coming for us. No one would be by, no one would rescue us. We had to just keep walking forward and seeing it through.
Our theme for the year is “Walk by Faith.” Sometimes even when it isn’t glamorous, when there is no mountain top experience, when no one is there to cheer you on, you still just need to keep moving forward by faith. In fact, those are probably the times when it is most important to keep moving forward by faith. But there’s another aspect to walking by faith that is so critical to embrace and it has to do with the Holy Spirit.
We spent the last two Sundays studying the Holy Spirit and how to be filled with the Spirit. One key to walking by faith is to walk by the Spirit, instead of in your own strength. Scripture often speaks to the ways we should walk. The book of Ephesians in chapter five lists at least three ways:
- Walk in Wisdom “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” vs15-16
- Walk in Light “for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light” v8
- Walk in Love “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” vs1-2
Galatians 5:16 says, “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” What does it mean to walk by the Spirit? Just a few verses later it says to be led by the Spirit. With each step we are called to follow what the Spirit says to do, rather than our flesh, “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other…” (vs17)
We are coming into the final two weeks of our series on Knowing God is Loving God, covering major topics of theology. My prayer is that as we meditate on who God is, and on how to walk by the Spirit, that we see our minds and hearts transformed so that we more often choose to follow the path of the Spirit, rather than the path of the flesh. The more our church daily walks by the Spirit, the more we will see Christ at work in our families, in our church, and all across the South End of Louisville!