You plan a great walk with your best friend and it’s a gorgeous day!
For some, a beautiful day is defined as a light and airy springtime afternoon. Others love the crispness of a fall morning. Still, there are those that will take summertime over any time.
No matter which you prefer, a walk with your bestie is good in any season. You agree on a place to meet. It’s that stunning golf course down the road apiece. Then, you go one step further before you take a step.
“Hey, I’ve got some golf clubs in the trunk and as long as we’re here…” you friend suggests.
That’s a great way to ruin a good walk. Instead of enjoying that picture-perfect day, the imperfect in both of you emerges and the conversation changes from “How ya’ doin’?” to how you are doing on your shots. That’s a dramatic switch in agendas even if you’ve end up with more birdies than an aviary.
When walks-and-talks change from relationship to performance, we’re going from sweet little birdies to loudmouthed crows.
That’s how a relationship with God can get played out. Either through performance-based theology that we grow up with or were introduced to or a gradual slide into a good/bad grading system that we’ve developed, our walk with God can take on the golfer’s reality that “you’re only as good as your last shot.”
The next time you plan a walk with God, skip the game(s).
PORTAL TO HEAVEN: It seems easier for some to come to the realization that God simply enjoys being with us. The bonus comes when we find that our performance actually improves through a spring, summer or fall walk with our bestie under a sky filled with birdies and eagles.
Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish?... But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved…it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Galatians 3:2,3, Ephesians 2:4,5,8,9