My Year of Daily Walks
Tomorrow a year ago I committed to walking every day for 365 days. My minimum distance has been one mile. From our house I have a two mile route and a 3 mile route that have become routine. I had no idea that what started as an idea and goal would become a psalmic medication for my soul.
Just as I have physically experienced the seasons, so too I have found seasons of my soul. I’ve now walked every day through the crisp and dark winter, the tender green of spring, the fullness of summer, the scents of golden fall, and back to frigid barrenness. Every season is absolutely beautiful. Yes . . . There are micro seasons of negative windchills and double plus humidities, yet the overall year is blessed beyond blessing. Far more are the days of joy than the days of sorrow. And even the days of sorrow hold out beauty like a frigid day brings clear mountain views or humidity brings a wide-armed sunset.
These walks have created space for needed honesty.
Not all of ministry has been rosy and progressing in a way that I had hoped or expected. The last year has been far from perfect. I can write a newsletter and lean hard to communicate the Lord’s kindness and keep a thin glossy veneer. The reality is, the devil is always at hand conniving, destroying, and confusing.
These walks have allowed me the opportunity to vent . . . To raise my fist and voice in anger toward unrighteousness and wickedness that can codify procedures and processes against people and the kingdom of God disguising it in religious garb and terminology. I have been in the witness stand watching a people who speak fluently of proper theology but grotesquely distort what it means to love and welcome and worship a Savior who rescues rather than condemns. The chill of these winters have made me shiver and wonder if spring will ever come. Yet spring always comes because the Father has set the seasons in motion and resurrection is real.
These walks have exposed my own heart. I’ve seen my own voracious appetite for validation. I have an over-eager appetite for respect and can try to gain approval and identity through the temporary stuff of life rather than through Jesus. It’s ugly. It brings death. It’s the stuff for which Jesus came to rescue me. Again, death is conquered and life comes through Christ. Winter thaws and waters the spring grasses.
As I have walked and reflected, my heart has been on a daily journey from anger, sin, and confusion to joy, forgiveness, and clarity. That’s psalmic. And cathartic. And life-giving.
What happens tomorrow? I guess I’ll keep on walking.