Why I Looked Down the Hallway

He took long, strong strides when he walked. He usually walked with a fast pace too. It was difficult, especially as a child, to keep up with him. As a boy looking up to him, I often wanted to literally walk in his same footprints. I would almost have to leap from one to the next.

He was the butcher at the grocery store he co-owned with his brother. He told me one day I was going to work in the meat market with him on Saturday mornings. The store opened at 7:00 a.m. and lunch was at 11:30 a.m. It was a long four and half hours for a kid!

Although I disliked the thought that most of my school mates were sleeping in on Saturday morning, I took a pride in working with my Dad.

I was a deep sleeper. It was very difficult for me to wake up in the mornings back then. But he would turn the light on in my bedroom at 6:00 a.m. and say, “Get up!”

By the time I rolled out of bed, rubbed some sand out of my eyes, and got my feet on the floor, he was fully dressed and sitting at the dining table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper while my mom cooked breakfast. Yes, she got up every morning and cooked breakfast!

I would stick my head out my bedroom door, look down the hall at him sitting there. I wanted see what color shirt he had on.

That’s right, if he had on a blue shirt, I went to my closet and picked out a blue shirt too!

The apostle John says of Jesus with whom he literally walked and followed:

But whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected.  By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. 1 John 2:5-6 ESV

The key to walking like Jesus is not to leap from one footprint to the next. Although there is likely a spiritual application in that. The key is to love Him so much you want to.

Each morning look down the hallway of Scripture and see what He’s doing. Now love Him enough to go do that too.

Our Father, thank-you for the view of Yourself through Jesus in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We commit today to walk as He walked, live as He lived, react as He reacted, love as He loved.