Not long ago, I was at Tae Kwon Do with one of my guys, hanging out in the nursery (because it has comfortable chairs!) with a friend when another mom stopped by, all dressed in her workout clothes, and said, "I'm walking, do you guys want to go?". My friend and I were both like . . ummm No. HA! But, it got me thinking about something.
Anytime friends announce something to this line of - "Hey, a bunch of us are going to meet up at the trail and walk and talk while the kids burn off some energy." I always say no. I don't so much say no because I don't want to hang out but because I'm a super slow walker. I mean, just in every day life I walk slow. It's the course of my life. Way (WAY) back in middle school when we had to do the Presidential Fitness Program and had to walk a mile around the track . . . I failed. We had to walk the mile in 30 minutes and well, I never finished before it was time to go in for our next hour.(For the record - I can now walk a mile in less then 20 minutes!) Darryl has learned to just walk and then stop and wait for me - I'll catch up eventually. (Good thing he likes to read all of the information signs in the museums or walking trails and I don't - he gets to read them all while waiting for me). Anyway, I digress. I don't join the group of friends because I know they plan to actually "walk" and I will either not keep up or be unable to talk from walking so fast! So instead I stay home.
I then started thinking about how this relates to our Christian Life. In 2 Corinthians 1:4 Paul wrote, "He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us." Notice how it says "He comes alongside us" which to me reads that when Jesus is walking with me he is walking WITH me, at my pace. He isn't speed walking; or looking back to make sure I'm keeping up, Instead, He is matching my stride and making sure that He stays with me as we walk through hard times or even good times. THEN it says, "he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so we can be there for that person." Wait. That means that I'm not running in front of them yelling back, "Hey! Come on slow poke, you have a lesson to learn here!" but, instead, I should be slowing my pace down, taking a breath, and making sure that they don't feel defeated. Walk at such a pace that they can keep up -- learn, understand, listen, talk. Things that are hard to do when you are out of breath from trying to "keep up."
The reality is that we never know what place a person is in that is needing someone to walk beside them. They may be beat down from the constant noise around them telling them what they "should" be or how they "should" be doing things. They may be full of joy because of the great things happening in their life. Either way, though, we are instructed to come alongside . .. to listen . .. to hear. . . . to just breath. Not to run ahead and expect that weary or tired or joyful person to keep up. Instead of keeping up they may just fall back and find themselves walking that path alone once again.
