Come Home to Yourself
I love to walk. My arms and legs swinging like pendulums, air moving in and out of my lungs, soft breezes on my skin and warm sunshine on my face. Walking is life-giving and enlivening.
Moving my body and walking daily is part of my spiritual practice. In the heat or the frigid cold, I walk. Walking has become an important and meaningful way to pray, think, consider, and worship as I wander through creation, the temple with no roof.
As I read about the people who made their way through the pages and stories of Scripture, I notice that each did so while walking their own spiritual journey. Scripture retells their lives as they traveled from the Garden of Eden to Canaan to Egypt, then through the Wilderness to the Promised Land to Babylon and back. Then Jesus makes his way onto the pages of Scripture and sounds forth the invitation to “follow me,” walk with me.
An essential part of my life, and perhaps yours too, is learning to walk with God. From the outset of human history, God has been present with humans as individuals. God was physically present to Adam and Eve in the garden, walking with them and carrying on two-way conversations. Enoch walked with God and walked right into heaven! Noah walked with God and became blameless. Abraham walked with God and was called a friend of God. God was present to the Israelites as a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night as they walked through the wilderness.
Walking is core to our spiritual pilgrimage and understanding of our faith. The writer of Hebrews tells us that the way we walk is by faith and not by sight. Walking is evidence of a relationship with God. It is a core tenet of our faith.
Walking with God implies that each of us must do something. Walking is not static or passive; rather, it involves movement and motion. It requires awareness of one’s surroundings and an awareness of oneself.
“To walk” in Hebrew is the word halek. It means to go, get out, walk, proceed, move. It is used extensively throughout the Old Testament to describe physical movement from one place to another. Beyond its literal sense, halek is often employed metaphorically to describe one's conduct or way of life, indicating a manner of living or behaving that is pleasing to God and fitting together with God’s principles and ways.
When God establishes a relationship with Abram, the father of the Jewish faith, he uses the word halek. The Lord says to Abram, “Go from your country, your people, and your father’s household to the land I will show you.” God instructs Abram to go, to leave, to get out, to walk.
To walk in the Hebrew is a reflexive verb. For all of the non-grammar folks, this is a verb whose direct object is the same as its subject. It’s as if God says to Abram: walk yourself toward yourself, participate consciously in what you are doing, pay attention to your walking, walk back to yourself.
The first thing God invites Abram to do is to walk toward himself. It is such a kindness of God that God did not tell Abram to first walk toward God and figure God out. No, rather, he tells him to walk toward himself. Additionally, there is a subtle nuance to this word in Hebrew. It means to walk to yourself and to walk for yourself.
Consider who you are. What do you really want? What are you longing for?
Claim yourself, stand up for yourself.
Come home to yourself.
As Abram continues to walk with God and has some time to get to know himself, God does invite Abram to come close, walk towards God, and get to know God.
I wonder if this story of Abram’s faith walk led the theologian John Calvin to emphasize the importance of both self-knowledge and knowledge of God as crucial components of one’s walk with God. The quote often attributed to Calvin is, “We cannot know God without knowing ourselves, and we cannot know ourselves without knowing God.” These two kinds of knowledge are interdependent—they rise or fall together. The process of learning about yourself and God is seen as a continuous journey of self-reflection and spiritual development.
I wonder if walking towards and for ourselves is where we can learn to fully embrace our humanity, warts, wounds, and all? Might we be able to open our arms wide, welcome ourselves home, and offer ourselves some radical hospitality and self-acceptance?
As 2025 unfolds, consider, in what ways are you…
walking back to yourself
claiming yourself?
coming home to yourself?
Inspiration
WALK DON’T RUN
Walk, don’t run.
That’s it.
Walk, don’t run.
Slow down, breathe deeply,
and open your eyes because there’s
a whole world right here within this one. The bush doesn’t suddenly catch on fire,
it’s been burning the whole time.
Moses is simply moving
slowly enough to see it. And when he does,
he takes off his sandals.
Not because
the ground has suddenly become holy, but because he’s just now becoming aware that the ground has been holy the whole time.
Efficiency is not God’s highest goal for your life,
neither is busyness,
or how many things you can get
done in one day, or speed, or even success.
But walking,
which leads to seeing,
now that’s something.
That’s the invitation for every one of us today,
and everyday, in every conversation, interaction,
event, and moment: to walk, not run. And in doing so,
to see a whole world right here within this one.
by Rob Bell
I am here to serve your soul in whatever ways you might need or long for … spiritual direction, spiritual companionship, leadership coaching, enneagram coaching, Ignatian Spiritual Exercises guide, and guided retreats. What does your soul need? What does your soul want?
Walking towards myself, Becky