walk like enoch

My brother Cody and me after a good day fishing.

When I was three years old my parents took our family backpacking through Yosemite.

My brother and I had our own small packs, with our clothes and toothbrushes in them. They weighed very little, but still we complained and cried when they began to feel heavy.

My parents were bearing the weight of our tents, food, sleeping bags, tools, and everything else necessary for survival. I'm pretty sure we drove them crazy when they had to add our packs to their backs as well.

At one point in the trail, we were hedging along a perilous, narrow trail with a steep drop-off beside it. My mom desperately wanted me to hold her hand. Had I fallen, in all likelihood I would have died.

But I was stubborn and independent and I refused her help. My wise mother took a rope and secured it to my waist.

And so I walked, backpack-less and tethered to the one who loved me and knew what was best for me.

I walk that same way today, except it is God who holds me by His life-line of grace and carries what I can't bear.

 I wonder if this is what Enoch's life was like.

Enoch, that mysterious man in the Bible who is famous for two things: Enoch walked with God, and he never died because God just took straight up to heaven.

"... Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away." -Genesis 5:21-24 

"By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God." -Hebrews 11:5-6

I want to walk with God like Enoch, whose closeness to God was his crowning glory. 

I want to walk like Enoch, whose greatest accomplishment is what God did for him, not what he did for God.

I want to hash through life's challenges, face my mountains, tread my feet on this life God has given me, and rest secure in the knowledge that God is with me until the very end.

We are really just backpacking through this present world, on our way to the great peak of God's eternal presence. 

Today we walk along a precarious, narrow trail. 

But someday, it will lead us home.