Wobbly But Walking
“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” Isaiah 41:10
“Wow, I haven’t seen you in a while,” I called out to a woman as I walked the ministry’s three-legged dog Lucy. I had wondered if she was still alive. She was elderly, had been challenged with serious health issues, and I hadn’t seen her in months. “How are you?” I said as I kept walking.
“Wobbly,” she said as she opened her mailbox and retrieved her mail.
“But you’re walking!” I called out as I walked past her and onwards.
“Yeah,” she said, sounding discouraged as she began to make her way slowly back to her house. I watched her walk away, wobbly, with the help of a walker she had gotten since I had last seen her.
Within moments, words came to my heart. Wobbly but walking. I knew there was a message in this. Walking by faith is not as simple as waking one morning, repenting of our sins and believing in Christ as Lord, being forgiven by God and entering into a relationship with Him, being promised eternal life, and from that moment forward doing a perfect job of leaving our sinful ways behind and walking perfectly in the ways of the Lord in perfect fellowship with Him. Walking by faith isn’t about perfection at all; it’s about learning to walk in God’s ways with plenty of stumbling, falling, repenting and standing back up again along the way as God by His Spirit transforms our hearts and lives through His Word as He lovingly, patiently, mercifully, forgives us and conforms us to the image of Christ. We’re not perfect; God is! And as we yield ourselves to Him, He by His Spirit perfects His love and ways in and through us.
Learning to leave behind the world’s ungodly ways and to walk in the Lord’s holy and righteous ways and to walk hand in hand in close fellowship with Him instead of hand in hand with this world’s wickedness is challenging beyond measure and can only be done in the Lord’s strength as He by His Spirit enables us to walk in full love and devotion to Him.
The woman I spoke to seemed discouraged because her focus was on her wobbling rather than how fortunate she was to be walking albeit imperfectly. For years, in learning to walk with the Lord, I was constantly so discouraged over my continual wobbling, stumbling and falling that I often wanted to quit. But God gave me the strength to persevere. The devil wants us to focus on our wobbles, stumbles, and falls so we turn away from God and return to the wickedness of this world.
Just as a child learns to walk by setting his or her eyes on his or her destination, we need to focus on the Lord and His Word and be encouraged that in God’s strength we can truly learn to walk with Him now and forever!