JUST WALKING

WALK (Even When You Don’t Want To) `I really didn’t even want to get up this morning. My body was achy...nothing major just “old-age” aches and pains that usually disappear once I am up and moving. But this morning seemed a good morning to turn on my other side, wrap my arms around my pillow, pull the sheet a little closer to my chin and just snuggle down for another few minutes. I knew if I did, my walk wouldn’t happen. I have promised myself I will walk each day this week, so I made myself get up, get dressed and start down the blacktop toward the highway. I would not describe my steps as lively or my face as joyful, but I am walking. I plod along my usual route, and just as I turn the corner to start the last lap of my journey there they are in front of me...right in the middle of the road. A doe and her little fawn are also taking their morning stroll. Batting their eyes and twitching their white tails, they stand ears-up alert, poised to run at the slightest indication of danger. Obviously not feeling I am too dangerous, the mother and baby wander slowly across the road, turn once to check me out and then bound into the corn field behind Crestwood School. And even though I know deer are rampant in this county, cause many automobile accidents and eat our crops, they are still a beautiful early morning surprise. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and God’s creation is all around me. Seeing the deer, I stop for a minute, enjoy my surroundings and thank God that I am physically able to walk as a part of His creation. I continue on towards home just thankful that even though I didn’t really want to walk, I had trudged the path and turned the corner and experienced the sudden beauty of the mother and her child of nature. Again God reminds me in His own way that “this is the day that the Lord has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it.” I wonder if this isn’t also true about our daily spiritual walk. Many times I start the day not really too anxious to do the God “things” I know I should do. Reading my Bible, praying, calling on the sick, sending the cards, talking to my neighbor about Jesus are not things I want to do. I would much rather pull the sheet of the world around me and go on with my life of pleasure. And yet when I take the time and make the effort, I find many lovely surprises just waiting for me as I turn the corner. I realize how God’s Word speaks to me so personally; how much I enjoyed visiting with the lady in the nursing home; how talking to my neighbor has brought me a new friend and most of all the joy I feel when the day is done. Again His Word comes “Ask where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your soul.” And I have. Enjoy your walk.