Walk with me

Jason and I recently went out to an improv comedy show.  It was in a massive, stately building with a slew of stone steps up the front.


Exiting afterwards with the upbeat, chatty crowd, we made our way down all those steps to discover, at the bottom, an older lady in high-heeled shoes who had stumbled on the last step and was kneeling in pain on the sidewalk.  The crowd's murmur said she had broken her ankle.


We hesitated, of course, but as there were already several people surrounding her, cell phones in hand, we felt it proper to move on.


More than that, the injured woman's husband was with her.  The gentleman was also on his knees on the sidewalk in his dress clothes, strong hands on her waist, supporting her, calming her, assessing her needs.  His face was close enough to hers to whisper in her ear and examine her pupils.  The two were so close they were almost one figure.


Whether the man had medical expertise or not I do not know.  But the scene I glimpsed was of a man who saw his bride in pain and knelt in the dirt to minister intimately to her need.


As we set out on our walk to the parking garage, we passed another couple, in a loose sense of the word.  The woman walked with the help of two crutches, leaning on them with her forearms and staggering awkwardly along.  The man was so far ahead of her I'm not sure he was actually with her.  We passed her first, and then we passed him, just as he was turning to look back at her.


Both women had evidently great weakness.


As we limp through our own walk of life, which companion do we believe God is like?


Is He striding ahead of us, only occasionally turning around to watch us struggle forward?


Or is He kneeling in the dirt with us, holding us and providing for our need?


Worse, do we believe God is like the talented actor inside on the stage, entertaining us in a beautiful building when we choose it and forgotten soon after?


Or are we the star of our show, and is God a faceless, unimportant viewer in the shadows?


From the Lord God walking with Adam in the Garden; to the passionate Lover of Song of Songs; to the incarnate Christ who so intensely loved His bride that He traded a heavenly throne for a manger stall--and a cruel death; to the risen Savior who is even now interceding on behalf of His beloved; beginning to end, the Bible describes an intimate God, who offers one way forward through our weakness:  the imputed righteousness of Jesus, who took on God's displeasure, that we might know only His compassion and delight.