He walked with God
Enoch, who did not die
Genesis 5 is a chapter you skim — a long genealogy with a drumbeat refrain. Adam lived, and had sons and daughters, and he died. Seth lived, and had sons, and he died. On and on, the same ending after every name: and he died. Death stamps its mark on the whole list.
And then, in the middle of the roll call, the pattern breaks. Of one man it does not say he died. It says instead: Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. The phrase walked with God appears twice in his short notice, as if to say it is the only thing worth recording about him. Not his accomplishments, not his estate — simply that he walked with God.
The word for walked suggests an ongoing, habitual companionship — not a single dramatic encounter but a daily, year-after-year keeping company with God, until the line between walking with God on earth and walking with God in heaven simply dissolved. One day Enoch walked so far into the presence of God that he did not come back.
“Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.”
— Of Enoch — Genesis 5:24 (WEB)
Build a life that walks with God — daily, unspectacular companionship — one ordinary step at a time.
“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”
We mistake the spiritual life for a collection of dramatic moments and so neglect the daily walk that actually forms us. The interior work is to value the unspectacular habit of keeping company with God over the mountaintop event — to believe that intimacy is built one ordinary day at a time — and to take the next step in his company rather than waiting for a grand encounter.
Choose one fixed, repeatable way to walk with God daily this week — a morning turning, a midday pause, an evening review — and keep it every day, valuing the steady walk over any single dramatic moment.
The craving for the spectacular teaches us to despise the ordinary daily walk, so we keep waiting for a moment instead of building a life. But nobody walks with God for three hundred years by accident; it is laid down one unremarkable step at a time, and a walk neglected today is simply a walk never taken.
We tend to think the great spiritual life is made of mountaintop moments — the dramatic conversion, the answered prayer, the unforgettable encounter. Enoch's epitaph suggests something quieter and more demanding: a life made not of moments but of a walk, the daily, unspectacular habit of keeping company with God through ordinary years.
Nobody walks three hundred years with God by accident. It is built one day at a time, one turning-toward-him at a time, until companionship with God is simply the texture of a life. That walk is on offer to you, and it begins the same way it always has — not with a grand gesture, but with the next ordinary step taken in his company. Draw near, and he draws near.
- Is my spiritual life built of moments, or of a daily walk?
- What ordinary habit of keeping company with God could I begin?
- Am I waiting for the spectacular instead of taking the next step?
Lord, I want to walk with you — not for a moment, but for a life. Draw near to me as I draw near to you, one ordinary day at a time. Amen.